Joy Marie Clarkson's Blog, page 10

Screens and Souls

Screens play a huge role in our life, and almost all of our relationships are mediated in some way through social media. How can we live connected, authentic, purposeful lives in a world of screens?Screen. Noun.1  a thing providing concealment or protection: 2 a blank surface on which a film or photographic image is projected:

Screens can come between us, and they can connect us. Their role in our life will be determined by the way we use them. This week, we’ll explore the way that screens can distort our view of reality by appealing to our deepest, human longings even though they can only ever offer us a virtual satisfaction. How, then, can we work toward using technology as a tool?

Visual — The Truman Show














The Truman Show

Starring Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor

“It’s all true. It’s all real. Nothing here is fake. Nothing you see on this show is fake. It’s merely controlled.”

Everyone knows Truman Burbank. No really… everyone! That is because this affable, average fellow is protagonist of the world’s favourite reality TV show. His life has been observed by viewers from the day of his birth, through high school, through college, graduation, and marriage. He smiled at his first camera in the womb. The catch? Truman doesn’t know his life is a reality show, that every person in his life is an actor, and that the sunny, white collar island he’s learned to call home is actually the world’s largest movie set.

This is the premise of The Truman Show (1998) written and produced by Andrew Niccol. This movie, created 20 years ago, before the advent of Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram, anticipated the oddity and potential danger of a totally public, and totally materialistic life. Niccols is interested in the ways that technology will form and malform our societies and ourselves. Niccol's observations were prescient. As I rewatched the movie I wondered if he could possibly have guessed that within a few decades we would be willingly submitting ourselves to Truman’s fate.

Truman lives in a world controlled by comfort and fear.

On the one hand, Truman’s life is easy and comfortable. He lives the American dream, with his perfect wife, his picket fence, and his pristine town. Christof (the creator of the show) uses these comforts to convince Truman that this life is the life he wants. He is, as Neil Postman put it, entertained nearly to death.

But Truman’s life is also haunted by fear and trauma. To ensure that Truman stays within the borders of the world Christof has created for him, Christof manufactures the death of his father in the set’s giant ocean, ensuring that Truman will not ever drive across the water. When he goes to get a plane ticket, the walls are strewn with outlandish warnings regarding the dangers of travel.

Truman’s world, you see, is mediated to him, controlled, and filtered. Both through fear and pleasure, Christof seeks to control Truman’s life.

Meryl Burbank, Truman’s wife, is the emodiment of the emptiness of Truman’s life under the power of mere entertainment. She is a generically good looking woman— blonde hair, blue eyes, symmetrical features, and a permanent, plastic smile. She frequently gives awkwardly scripted product placement ads, in ways that seem jarring in the scenes. Whenever Truman tries to emotionally connect with her, she spouts meaningless fluff.

Christof doesn’t primarily want to destroy Truman, he wants to control him. But often, control leads to destruction if the controller cannot get their way.

Some have said that Christof, the creator and director of Trumans’ reality show, is a picture of God. There are certainly numerous subtle and unsubtle indications of this idea— his name (Christ-of), the line where he introduces himself to Truman “I am the creator… of the Truman show,” and the fact that he literally speaks to Truman, god-like, from the sky. If he is meant to be a deity, he is certainly a capricious one who repeatedly manipulates and harms Truman and even endangers the actors.. I would suggest, however, that this movie is not meant to criticise Christianity. Rather, it shows us the grave danger of letting technology, media, and consumerism take the role of God in the life of a society.

The Truman show is not an indictment of Christianity, it is a cautionary tale, reminding us what happens when we let technology, media, and consumerism play God in our lives.

As Truman struggles to discover the unmediated reality, to discover truth, he begins to ask big, serious questions: What is reality? Who am I? Can I make meaningful choices? These questions haunt our world.

Though we may not have a show like Truman, we voluntarily give ourselves over to Truman’s fate, documenting our every moment for the internet, and letting advertisers and politicians exploit the publicness of our lives to form our desires, to market to us, to tell us what we want.

Just as Truman fights to escape his screen bound world, we must fight to escape ours.

One thing I love about this movie: the motivation to seek reality comes from Truman’s one real, unmediated connection. Love is what draws us out of the bondage of a constrive, technological reality.

2. Musical — The Hymn of Acxiom

Vienna Teng worked in Silicon valley with the tech industry before pursuing a career in music. In Hymn of Acxiom she poignantly depicts how social media and marketing appeal to the fundamental, personal, spiritual needs we have and seek to satisfy them through making us good consumers. Acxiom is a data analysis company. In a review of the song, Jill Scharr writes about the company:

The Arkansas-based Acxiom collects both off-line and on-line marketing data, and collates it into profiles of individual people. Acxiom then sells that information back to the retailers through which the company had collected the data.Those retailers, in turn, use the profiles to conduct targeted marketing, sending people offers based on their location, age, gender or sex, race, income and previous purchases.Acxiom's data collection possibly rivals the National Security Agency's

Pretty crazy, huh? Seems like maybe our lives are more like Truman’s than we thought! Let’s listen to the song…

Hymn of AcxiomVienna Teng

somebody hears you. you know that. you know that.
somebody hears you. you know that inside.
someone is learning the colors of all your moods, to
(say just the right thing and) show that you’re understood.
here you’re known.

leave your life open. you don’t have. you don’t have.
leave your life open. you don’t have to hide.
someone is gathering every crumb you drop, these
(mindless decisions and) moments you long forgot.
keep them all.

let our formulas find your soul.
we’ll divine your artesian source (in your mind),
marshal feed and force (our machines will)
to design you a perfect love—
or (better still) a perfect lust.
o how glorious, glorious: a brand new need is born.

now we possess you. you’ll own that. you’ll own that.
now we possess you. you’ll own that in time.
now we will build you an endlessly upward world,
(reach in your pocket) embrace you for all you’re worth.

is that wrong?
isn’t this what you want?
amen

Aims

Soltruna Records

Teng shows us how the fundamental desires we have to be known, loved, significant, and not forgotten are exploited by both social media and the people who use social media to market. It is a hymn for the same reason Christof is a picture of an anti-christ— it is substituting our desire for the divine for technology. The problem is that social media can never fill those essential needs. Ultimately, marketing techniques can only muster lus not love, as Teng poignantly notes.

Teng shows how when we live in a world shaped for us by screens, we aren’t tasting the true sweetness of reality, of love, or of spirituality. It will leave us dry. Social media makes a lousy God.

What then are we to do? 3. Literary — Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”

— Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

Wendell Berry is righteously grumpy.

And this is why I love him so much. He is a prolific writer, an environmentalist, a farmer, and for him all these things are tied up in being a Christian. Now in his 80’s Berry has never owned a computer. I was deeply moved by his book Life is a Miracle in which he argues that one of the major problems in our society is that we only treat things as valuable insomuch as we can quantity and control them… sound familiar? He says we treat the world and ourselves as machines, which is to say as inanimate, dead things. And often, when we treat things, people, and the earth that way, we end up killing them or their hope.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition

By Wendell Berry






Other resources you might enjoy…














Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

By Neil Postman






So, tell me your thoughts: how do you think we can work toward a healthy use of technology that pulls us into closer friendship and a deeper love of the world?

Speaking with Joy is back!

I’m back!On Tuesday, March 5th, a new season of Speaking with Joy begins!

After a book launch, conferences, and international travel (oh my!), I’m finally ready to begin a new season of Speaking with Joy. As I’ve thought, prayed, and brainstormed about what topics I wanted to address, and how i wanted to move forward, it felt important to restate my vision for this podcast. So I recorded a podcast telling the story of why and how I started the podcast and what I hope for the coming season. Click to listen above!

And if you haven’t already, subscribe on iTunes and sign up for email updates at the link at the bottom of the page!

What I hope for this new season…























In this pre-season episode, I talked all about why I started the podcast, and what I hope it will accomplish in the future. To educate…

We live in a world inundated with information, and starved for wisdom. I want this podcast to be a space of deep learning, careful thought, and intellectual exploration together. Specifically, I want to provide you with resources: books, images, ideas, and movies you can enjoy and explore. I also want to explore deep ideas with you through the lens of art, to help us think and feel more clearly.

To provide a space of comfort and retreat…

Our world can make me feel very weary, and I have a feeling I am not alone in that regard! We are constantly made aware of dark, cynical things, and I want this to be a place where you can experience a modicum of relief from the relentlessness of the modern world, where you can dwell on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).

To keep our hearts soft, open, and awake…

I think one of our greatest dangers is that we could grow heart and cold-hearted. Exposed, as we are through social media, to such a great volume of darkness and inanity, it can be easier to shut down, to become desenistized, and to not feel much of anything. But this is a great danger. Good hearts are soft hearts. Beautiful souls are awake to the world. Compassionate people have warm, tender presences. I think art has the capacity to take us by surprise, and to prize open our arts to the beauty and tenderness and brokenness of the world.

I hope each episode accomplishes one or all of these things for you.Oh! And another thing…

I’ll be posting an episode every week now, rather than every other week. I’ll be alternating between the normal episodes (one theme+three pieces of art) and episodes where I discuss a theme with a friend.

We can call these new episodes Chatting with Joy.























Have you thought about joining the Patreon?

Friends, last year I nearly burned out. I was trying to write my phd, make enough money to live off of, and do the podcast. And, frankly, it was too much. I was tired all the time and started getting sick a lot. I’ve seen God graciously provide for me in many ways— including funding for the Phd— but I was feeling, as Bilbo would put it, like butter spread out over too much bread. So, I took some time to think, dream, and pray.

As I prayed, I realized I felt called to two things:to write my phdto continue the podcast

So, I decided to take a step of faith, quit working, and start a Patreon, hoping that it would fill in the financial gaps. And you all are amazing! You far exceeded my expectations, you’ve sustained me through the year. I couldn’t be more thankful.

as a thank you for your support, I post fun extra content:secret podcasts and poetry readingsThe Joynal— a monthly letter of update from me!featured artist giveaways— interviews, samples, and thoughts from working artistsPDF downloads recipes… and much, much more!

More than all this, though, I consider it a place where I can shed my more polished self, and share my thoughts, experiences and ideas with you in a special, private-ish space on the internet. Now that I’m back to my normal schedule, I’m excited to invest more time in it and post more regularly. You can now support me either $2 a month or $10 a month. With the $2 patronage you will get the joynal and recipes, and with the $10 you will get all the rewards.

I’d be honored if you considered joining the Patreon! I’ll be posting new things each Wednesday.You can check out more about it at the link below…

Patreon — Speaking with Joy
And now, the schedule…Okay, so I’m still finalising this. But you can look forward to the first episode of the season…

All for now, friends!

I can’t wait to embark on this new season with you!

See you on Tuesday. :-)

a hug,

joy

The Epidemic of Loneliness

An epidemic has spread across our world, a sickness stealing the joy and corroding the souls of people of every age, ethnicity, and social strata.

I’m speaking of the epidemic of loneliness. 

I experienced this epidemic for the first time after I graduated college.

Like so many people my age, I moved home after university to work, save money, and prepare for my next step. I wanted to go to grad school, but I didn’t have the energy to dive straight into the papers and exams, and to be frank, I didn’t have the money either. I knew the year wouldn’t be a glamorous one, but I felt prepared to buckle in and enjoy it for what it was. I loved spending time with my parents, and they treated me like an adult. I found work, I saved, I read a lot of books, and over all it was a fruitful year.

But what I was not prepared for was the deep, abiding loneliness I experienced.

At first I thought it was just a readjustment period. I hadn’t lived in my hometown for many years; I would get used to it eventually. I tried joining clubs and societies, went to church every week, went on dozens of one-off coffee dates. I would have a nice evening, but no real connections seemed to blossom. I was at a loss.

I began to feel alarmed. It didn’t make sense! I am the consummate extravert. Everyone I meet is my friend. I’d never had difficulty making friends before. I began to ask myself scary questions: is something wrong with me? Am I too much? Am I too little? Am I not going about this the right way?

Eventually, drained by the repeated effort, I resolved to give up the battle. It was an in-between year anyway, and new horizons stretched out ahead. I took shelter in my work, and was thankful for the likeminded colleagues I found there. I read a lot, I tweeted a bit, and I started a blog. I was relieved when the next fall rolled round with the opportunity to move somewhere new.

I was excited to prove that I could stay make friends. 

I really hoped I could still make friends.

And I did. I was relieved. I hoped I would never feel that way again.

I’ve come to realize that my experience is not unique.

For the past years, social scientists and psychologists have scratched their heads and wrung their hands regarding an overwhelming trend of loneliness in the West. Over the last fifty years, reports of loneliness have doubled. In a recent study based on a survey of 20,000 people, 47% said they always felt alone or lonely, 43% said they had no meaningful relationships and that they felt isolated from others. This trend toward isolation, loneliness, and friendlessness shows no partiality toward gender, age, race, or job.

The data seems to be screaming one painful truth: everybody is lonelier than they used to be.

The condition of world seems to be loneliness and busyness. Our hands are full and our hearts are empty. We are constantly connected through social media, but lonelier and less known than ever. We move for jobs, but not for friends. We long for heart shaping, soul satisfying friendships, and culture is leaving us empty handed.

Our culture is not built in a way that encourages deep, faithful friendships; we would happily tell people to move far away from family and friends for job opportunities, but would rarely suggest someone choose a location based on relational reasons. Friendship is often seen as a pleasant thing most people want, rather than one of the bare necessities of life. It is treated lightly, flippantly even. And yet, I think the inability to connect, love our neighbour, and live in faithfulness to friendship is at the heart of so many of our societal woes. 

That is why I have come to believe that one of the most counter-cultural things we could do is to courageously pursue friendship. 

The solution to loneliness, to the kind of isolation that makes people give up on hope and life, to fear and hate and inability to disagree with kindness, and to so many other social ills begins with the ability to build bonds of friendship, to love well, and to form faithful and generous centres of community. It can feel like an uphill battle because our culture is not organised around a value for friendship. Nonetheless, friendship is profoundly worth it. It is a shot of hope into a weary world, it is a refusal to let our love grow cold, it is the thing that will keep us faithful, loving, and brave.
To fight the battle of loneliness, we must come to think of ourselves as agents of connection in the revolution of friendship. We must be willing to take the first step, to be the apartment that people can come to, the shoulder people can cry on. We must persist, not giving up the search for meaningful companionship and the hard work of building community. We must be willing to value relationship over productivity and utility. We must see ourselves as a part of the secret society that loves, that initiates, that spreads light in the darkness.

Friendship is our battle, our war against the quiet pain of loneliness that has ruled over our culture too long. Together, we can do something about it. 

So, friends, will you join me?

Will you be a part of the friendship revolution?

If you’re passionate about investing in meaningful friendships, I think you’ll love the book I just wrote with my mom and sister, Girls’ Club…














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson






How do we cultivate life-long, soul-satisfying friendships?

That’s what we asked ourselves as we wrote this book, weaving in stories with our social, theological, and biblical reflections. I think you’ll love it. Yes, even you ,fellas. You may also enjoy our guidebook (below).

Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson

We designed this guidebook to be a roadmap for drawing closer to your friends. It has practical activities, questions, and exercises to help you know your friends better, call out their passions and values, and to love each other in all your uniqueness. It’s meant to be used either with a friend or in a small group setting.

Dear Joylena, part two

Dear Joylena, part twoJoy and Elena lifestyle, lipstick, literature, and much, much more.Tune in!

Thank you all for tuning into the Girls’ Club podcasts, and for thinking with me about the profound importances of friendship. I so enjoyed meeting so many of you at the Girls’ Club Getaways. After two conferences, a book launch, a stomach flu, and an international flight, I am exhausted but happy and thankful.

Things we chat about in this episode:

what could we do to better prepare young people for the challenges of the world

How do you know if you’re settling?

How we chose our careers

the books we loved as children

What lipstick/gloss colors we wear

why (or why not) to pursue higher education

Someone asked us what books we loved when we were young… we loved this question! We listed off a number of books we loved in the podcast, so I thought I would attach links to a few of them here! You can hear more about why we love them in the podcast.














The Betsy-Tacy Treasury: The First Four Betsy-Tacy Books

By Maud Hart Lovelace





















Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

By Mildred D. Taylor





















The Railway Children

By E Nesbit





















Joan of Arc

By Mark Twain





















The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

By Trenton Lee Stewart





















The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

By Jeanne Birdsall





















Silas Marner (Audio Drama)

Focus on the Family






And don’t forget to purchase your copy of Girls’ Club!














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson





















Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson

Boze Herrington — The Literary Friendship of the Inklings

Welcome to the Girls’ Club Launch day podcast with Boze Herrington!!first, let me tell you a bit about the book…Today is the day! For two years now, my mom, sister, and I have been dreaming and plotting to write this book. Together, we have shared many years of sweet and strong companionship in our friendship. We have held each other up in difficult times, we’ve inspired each other to grow, to work harder, to become excellent in our skills. We’ve celebrated and loved and laughed.But when Sarah and I went out into the world, we felt keenly that strong companionship between women is not the norm. We live in a time where isolation and loneliness are particularly prevalent, but where women’s friendship is taken lightly. That’s why we wrote this book.Because we are made to live, to celebrate, and to thrive together— we are not meant to be alone.In this book we want to do two things:To cast a vision for the profound importance of women’s friendships in our livesTo give women tools, ideas, and approaches for how to cultivate life-long, soul satisfying friendships All this to say…Get your copy!!














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson






And maybe one for a friend, and your mom, and your next door neighbour, and that girl at the coffee shop…Oh! And I think you’ll enjoy the Girls’ Club Experience too!we designed girls’ club experience as a book you could work through with a friend or small group to help you draw closer together in friendship. it has meditations, activities, and questions to help you get to know your friends, and to help each other grow. check it out!














Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson






And today on the podcast, a special treat…Boze Herrington spoke with me about the literary friendship of the most prolific writing group of the 20th century… the Inklings!

Boze is the brilliant, humorous, and hopeful mind behind the Twitter account the Library Haunter (@SketchesbyBoze). You really should check it out. It will make you smile.

Boze and I bonded over a love of Charles Dickens, a dark, literary sense of humor, and a sense of the wonder and beauty in the world.

We met for the first time (in real life) over this past week at the conference in Dallas. As you might expect, we talked loads, drank tea, and found we could have recorded about 10 more podcasts if we’d only had the time.

If you love friendship, books, or the Inklings, I know you’ll love this podcast!Give it a listen.That’s all for now friends… Order your copy of Girls’ Club, have a friend over for tea, and remember that you are very, very loved.

Karen Swallow Prior — Friendship Through the Difficult Seasons of Life

True friends support us in the difficult seasons of life, loving us with their time, service, and words.Welcome back to the Girls’ Club Podcasts Series!This week, my mom and I had the great pleasure of talking with Karen Swallow Prior.

Karen is a renaissance woman. She has Ph. D., is Professor of English at Liberty University, where she has won multiple teaching awards. She writes frequently on literature, culture, ethics, and ideas. Her writing appears at Christianity Today, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, Books and Culture and other places. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012), Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014), and, most recently On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Literature (Brazos, 2018).

She’s even written on friendship! You can find her articles on the topic here and here.

I discovered Karen through Twitter, where she brings continual wisdom, wit, and depth. All this to say: it was a real delight to get to officially pick her brain on all things friendship.

To give you a preview, here are a few of the things we talked about…friendship through difficult seasons—how karen’s friends loved her well when she was (literally) hit by a bus.how to maintain friendships through the busyness of life and through changing life stageshow to discover likeminded and soul-sister friendshow to seek wise friendsI know you all will love this episode!
Don’t forget to purchase your copy of Girls’ Club!














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson






You also might enjoy Girls Club Experience! We designed Girls’ Club experience as a book you could work through with a friend or small group to help you draw closer together in friendship. It has meditations, activities, and questions to help you get to know your friends, and to help each other grow. Check it out!














Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson

Elena Trueba — Dear Joylena, an Advice Podcast

College Roommates, Best Friends, Advice Givers… What a fun podcast this was to record!

Several weeks ago, Elena came to visit me in Colorado. It was a fitting celebration of the release of Girls’ Club because Elena and I have a long history of faithful friendship. In college, we were debate partners, and then roommates. Over many years of life changes and cross continental moves, Elena and I have kept our friendship alive and it is a source of great delight and support to both of us.

This week, we had the great fun of doing an advice podcast.

You all submitted fascinating questions, and we did our best to answer them. We got so many questions that we ended up recording two episodes. This episode is all about our friendship and relationships more generally. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording this. :-)

Elena and her bunny Lucy

Elena Trueba… is a writer in her second year of a Masters in Theological Studies at Harvard University. She studies American evangelicalism in the 20th and 21st century, writes for an educational service in Boston, and has two adorable rabbits.Don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Girls’ Club and Girls’ Club Experience!

Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson





















Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson

Ashlee Cowles — Enneagram in Friendship

Personality differences are an unavoidable reality of life, but embracing them can lead to growth. Friends love us as we are, with all our personalities quirks included, and they also gently call us toward growth and balance.Welcome back to the Girls’ Club Podcasts Series!How can we accept each other's personality quirks and help each other grow? That is what Joy and Ashlee discuss in this week's podcast which touches on friendship between extroverts and introverts, Enneagram, Myers Briggs, and so much more! Ashlee is a novelist, an adventurer, a mom and a kindred spirit.

For the last five years or so, we’ve been chasing each other’s shadows. First, she went to St Andrews, and I followed a few years later, narrowly missing her. Then she joined the Anselm Society, which I joined slightly later, only for her to depart off to Michigan. We’ve rarely gotten to be in the same place for very long, but we cherish many of the same things and we get along like a house on fire! :-)

Oh, and did I mention she is the author of Beneath Wandering Stars? It’s a book about a girl from a military family who travels the Camino Santiago. I read it two summers and was engrossed and delighted. Such a scrumptious delight!

Beneath Wandering Stars

By Ashlee Cowles













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I loved doing this podcast with Ashlee. I won’t ruin much more of it for you because you should listen to it! Here’s a little taste of what we talked about:an overview of the enneagram and how it can be a tool for self and others-knowledgehow Our personalities shape our friendshipshow loving people with personalities different than ours can help us grow and changehow true friends both love us as we are (with all our personality quirks!) and call us toward growth and wholeness.Listen to all this and more at the link above (or below!)Oh, and by the way. I had originally planned to use this as a Secret Podcast for my Patreon , but I thought it was too good to hide its light under a bushel! However, you can find You Are Creative, Ashlee’s guide to creativity for each of the Enneagram types by supporting me on Patreon. There’s lots of other fun rewards this month on Patreon, so if you’re interested, try it out for the month



Speaking with Joy Patreon
Oh! And don’t forget to buy Girls’ Club!














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson






You also might enjoy Girls Club Experience! Friendship is like a garden— it must be tended, nurtured, weeded, and cultivated. And with Girls’ Club Experience we hope to give you the tools to cultivate a beautiful garden of friendship. This book is meant to be used either with a friend or with a group of friends. It contains activities and reflections meant to help you draw close to your friends and to help each other grow. I think you’ll love it!














Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson






Oh, and another thing…You’re invited to our Girls’ Club launch party!

On February 5th, get your Girls’ Club together, eat, fellowship and join us on a Facebook Live as we officially launch the book. Don’t forget to enter the Oxford Trip Give away . We’ll be announcing the winner that night!

Katelyn Beaty — Singleness, Calling, & Covenant friendships,

In our friends, we see the image of God reflected to us, revealing something about God we could never have discovered alone.Welcome to the Girls’ Club Podcasts Series!In support of our upcoming book Girls’ Club , my mom, sister Sarah, and I have been hard at work recording interviews with women we admire on the topic of friendship in an isolated world. These interviews have convicted and inspired me. I’ve walked away from each session with a renewed sense of the delight, profundity, and necessity of friendship in our lives. It is something we should protect, pursue, give thanks for. It is radically counter-cultural. It is a pressing issue, and a universal calling. It is how God made us to flourish— in relationship and community. I’ve been so excited to share these podcasts with you!






























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This week, I had the great pleasure of talking with Katelyn Beaty.























Katelyn is a remarkable woman.

I first encountered her when I was a Senior at Biola University. She came and spoke at Biola’s chapel and I though I want to be like her! At that time, she had just launched Her.menuetics, and become Christianity Today’s youngest— and first female!— managing editor. Later that year, she interviewed me and a group of friends at Oxford for her book A Woman’s Place: a Christian Vision for your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World. I admired how much she had already managed to pack into her life, but also the eloquence, gentility, and intelligence with which she did it.

So you can imagine what a pleasure it was to finally get to chat with Katelyn, especially about a topic I’m so passionate about: women’s friendship!

I won’t say too much more, because you should listen to the podcast.

As a preview, these are a few of the things we discussed…why we're all lonely in the modern worldwhat friendship looks like when you’re in different phases of life (married, single, working, college, etc.)how to form friendships that last the test of timehow the church needs to make more room for single peoplehow special it is to be a godparent, and how we need to make more spaces for committed, covenant relationships that aren’t marriagehow our different callings reveal God’s glory I think you all will really enjoy this one! In my humble opinion, it’s full of gold! You can listen in to the podcast at the green audio box above or below!Don’t forget to purchase your copy of Girls’ Club!You can purchase Girls’ Club anywhere that sells books! Below are links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson








Girls' Club — Barnes and Noble
You might also enjoy Girls’ Club Experience! Friendship is like a garden— it must be tended, nurtured, weeded, and cultivated. And with Girls’ Club Experience we hope to give you the tools to cultivate a beautiful garden of friendship. This book is meant to be used either with a friend or with a group of friends. It contains activities and reflections meant to help you draw close to your friends and to help each other grow. I think you’ll love it!














Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson








Girls' Club Experience — Barnes and Noble

Katelyn Beaty — singleness, & calling, & Covenant friendships,

In our friends, we see the image of God reflected to us, revealing something about God we could never have discovered alone.Welcome to the Girls’ Club Podcasts Series!In support of our upcoming book Girls’ Club , my mom, sister Sarah, and I have been hard at work recording interviews with women we admire on the topic of friendship in an isolated world. These interviews have convicted and inspired me. I’ve walked away from each session with a renewed sense of the delight, profundity, and necessity of friendship in our lives. It is something we should protect, pursue, give thanks for. It is radically counter-cultural. It is a pressing issue, and a universal calling. It is how God made us to flourish— in relationship and community. I’ve been so excited to share these podcasts with you!






























amazon Block


Search for an Amazon product to display.

Learn more

This week, I had the great pleasure of talking with Katelyn Beaty.























Katelyn is a remarkable woman.

I first encountered her when I was a Senior at Biola University. She came and spoke at Biola’s chapel and I though I want to be like her! At that time, she had just launched Her.menuetics, and become Christianity Today’s youngest— and first female!— managing editor. Later that year, she interviewed me and a group of friends at Oxford for her book A Woman’s Place: a Christian Vision for your Calling in the Office, the Home, and the World. I admired how much she had already managed to pack into her life, but also the eloquence, gentility, and intelligence with which she did it.

So you can imagine what a pleasure it was to finally get to chat with Katelyn, especially about a topic I’m so passionate about: women’s friendship!

I won’t say too much more, because you should listen to the podcast.

As a preview, these are a few of the things we discussed…what friendship looks like when you’re in different phases of life (married, single, working, college, etc.)How to form friendships that last the test of timeHow the church needs to make more room for single peopleHow special it is to be a godparent, and how we need to make more spaces for committed, covenant relationships that aren’t marriageHow our differences reveal God’s glory I think you all will really enjoy this one! In my humble opinion, it’s full of gold! You can listen in to the podcast at the green audio box above or below!Don’t forget to purchase your copy of Girls’ Club!You can purchase Girls’ Club anywhere that sells books! Below are links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.














Girls' Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson








Girls' Club — Barnes and Noble
You might also enjoy Girls’ Club Experience! Friendship is like a garden— it must be tended, nurtured, weeded, and cultivated. And with Girls’ Club Experience we hope to give you the tools to cultivate a beautiful garden of friendship. This book is meant to be used either with a friend or with a group of friends. It contains activities and reflections meant to help you draw close to your friends and to help each other grow. I think you’ll love it!














Girls' Club Experience: A Guided Journey into Friendship

By Sally Clarkson, Joy Clarkson








Girls' Club Experience — Barnes and Noble