What if you’re so busy trying to fix your life that you forget to live it?

We spend a lot of energy trying to understand ourselves, make better decisions, avoid pain, and gain some control over where our lives are going. But painter and therapist Josh Jensen wonders if we’ve begun to mistake thinking for doing—and knowledge for wisdom.

Josh and I talk about overthinking, our illusion of control, and the parts of life that can only be known by actually experiencing them. We explore the different selves inside each of us—the artist, the provider, the ambitious self, the playful self—and what it might mean to let them belong to one whole person. Eventually, we find our way to suffering, beauty, love, and the strange possibility that what we want most may not be control at all, but to lose ourselves in something greater that we can trust.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why thinking is only one way of knowing
• How overthinking can become a substitute for actually living
• The illusion of control and why knowledge can make us feel safer than we really are
• What happens when creativity collides with the need to make a living
• Learning to accept the different, sometimes conflicting parts of ourselves
• Why feelings and embodied experience can reach deeper than words
• Moving from naïveté through cynicism toward a “second naïveté”
• How suffering and conflict can become opportunities for transformation
• The surprising connection between beauty, trust, love, and losing control

ABOUT JOSH JENSEN
Josh Jensen is an abstract painter and marriage and family therapist whose two vocations continually inform one another. His paintings explore the tension between spontaneity and intention, chaos and order, beauty and meaning. Alongside his studio practice, Josh works as a therapist, helping people navigate relationships, grief, anxiety, spirituality, creativity, and the complexity of being human.

RESOURCES
Josh Jensen Art — Explore Josh’s paintings and current work.
https://jsjensenart.com
Introduction to Abstract Painting — Josh’s Domestika course exploring abstraction, composition, color, and the creative process.
https://www.domestika.org/en/courses/5206-introduction-to-abstract-painting
Josh Jensen at Ballantyne Well-Being — Learn more about Josh’s work as a marriage and family therapist.
https://bewellcharlotte.com/staff/josh-jensen

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Wine tastes like people. It tastes like the soil, the weather, the altitude, the years—and the hands that tended it. Because wine doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from a particular place, at a particular time, made by particular people. We’re like wine.

We come from places, from times, and from people. Families, friendships, traditions, neighborhoods. We’re shaped by the ground beneath our feet and by the people who have known us and loved us. But in a world where it’s increasingly possible to be connected to everyone and belong to nothing, what does it mean to actually put down roots?

My guest Adam Russell is a pastor, songwriter, and amateur winemaker who has spent a lot of time thinking about place, friendship, hospitality, and the slow work of becoming a person. We talk about why friendship might be a spiritual practice, why discipleship happens in community, what wine can teach us about belonging, and Adam’s beautifully simple answer to one of the biggest questions we can ask: What are people for? To watch, to tend, and to care.

IN THIS EPISODE

• What wine can teach us about people, place, and belonging
• Why Genesis describes human beings as creatures who watch, tend, and care
• How what we give our attention to slowly shapes who we become
• Why friendship may be the foundation—or container—for discipleship
• Why modern life requires us to develop intentional friendship practices
• How beauty, fun, and friendship restore our creativity
• Why Adam chose to stay rooted in rural Kentucky instead of chasing a bigger platform
• What can only happen when you stay with a place, a person, or a craft for a long time

ABOUT ADAM RUSSELL
Adam Russell is the Lead Pastor of Vineyard Campbellsville and a wine maker. He is a pastor, songwriter, worship leader, and producer whose work has helped shape the Vineyard movement for decades. Adam and his wife Heather live with their family on a small farm in rural Kentucky, where they grow grapes and make wine. His work and life are deeply rooted in questions of place, community, creativity, and what it means to faithfully tend the life right in front of you.

RESOURCES & LINKS
Vineyard Campbellsville — Adam’s church in Campbellsville, Kentucky.
What Are People For? by Wendell Berry — The collection containing the essay Adam references when answering the question at the heart of this conversation.
How Music Works by David Byrne — Referenced in our conversation about the way environments and places shape what artists create.
Beholding by Strahan Coleman — Referenced in our conversation about attention, contemplation, and what it means to truly behold.

CONNECT

Text Me - Join the SMS list for occasional thoughts, recommendations, and new work.
https://my.community.com/johnmarkmcmillan
Or text +1 (704) 286-1171

Patreon - Bonus conversations, extended episodes, and more from Flirting with Enchantment.
https://www.patreon.com/c/johnmarkmcmillan

Human beings are storytelling creatures. Whether we realize it or not, we all live by guiding stories and those stories shape thousands of small decisions that eventually shape our lives, our culture, and the world we’re making together. So what happens when our guiding stories become cynical, defined more by what we’re tearing down than what we’re building? And could cultural and spiritual renewal begin by telling better stories?

John Mark sits down with cultural theologian Paul Anleitner to explore the stories underneath our modern crisis of meaning. They talk about what happens when we lose the religious and cultural narratives that once gave us a sense of purpose, why no one actually lives without a guiding story, and how disenchantment can emerge when life is flattened into questions of matter, politics, and power. Paul also explores the limits of deconstruction and argues that the way forward isn’t simply another revolution—it’s recovering a positive vision of what is good, beautiful, and worth building.

KEY TOPICS

• How the stories we live by shape our individual lives, communities, and culture
• Why the modern meaning crisis may also be a crisis of story
• What we lose when we walk away from religious traditions and the narratives that formed us
• Why no one is truly without a guiding story—even when they claim to believe in nothing
• How reducing life to matter, politics, and power can contribute to disenchantment
• The difference between deconstruction, rebellion, and genuine reform
• Why cynicism can trap us in an endless cycle of defining ourselves by what we oppose
• How better stories might help us recover meaning, transcendence, and a vision of human flourishing

ABOUT PAUL ANLEITNER
Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian whose work focuses on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning. His interdisciplinary approach brings together theology, philosophy, science, and cultural analysis to help individuals and institutions navigate cultural shifts and perennial religious longings.
Paul is also the author of Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning, which explores many of the ideas at the center of this conversation.

RESOURCES & LINKS
Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning — Paul’s book on story, deconstruction, meaning, and cultural renewal.
https://churchsource.com/products/based-on-a-true-story-vibe-shifts-the-end-of-deconstruction-and-the-reboot-of-meaning
Goodmakers — Paul’s work exploring cultural renewal, leadership, meaning, and the stories that shape us. https://www.goodmakers.co

CONNECT

Text Me - Join the SMS list for occasional thoughts, recommendations, and new work.
https://my.community.com/johnmarkmcmillan
Or text +1 (704) 286-1171

Patreon - Bonus conversations, extended episodes, and more from Flirting with Enchantment.
https://www.patreon.com/c/johnmarkmcmillan