Makers & Mystics

Contemplation is the inhale, and creativity is the exhale. Author and spiritual director Kayla Craig shares how we can make space for both.
Her devotional, Our Daily Breath, guides readers through contemplative prayer practices designed to renew creative energy in a loud, distracted world. 
Stephen Roach and Kayla explore why cynicism comes so easily, and how stillness opens the door to compassion, nuance, and hope. Kayla shares the research behind mindful breathing and why it matters for artists, musicians, and makers. 
KEY TOPICS COVERED
Creativity begins with attention, and contemplative prayer trains you to notice what is already sacred in ordinary life.
Why being nourished from the inside out gives you something to offer when the world's pain shows up.
Creating from abundance, not scarcity, gives your work more weight, so caring for your soul becomes part of your craft.
ABOUT KAYLA CRAIG
 Kayla Craig is an author and spiritual director who writes prayers and devotions for people living full, noisy lives. She studied contemplative spiritual formation and spiritual direction at Columbia, where her instructor trained under Thomas Keating. Her new book, Our Daily Breath, gathers 365 prayers and practices and draws on more than 400 citations from contemplatives, poets, and artists. She is a mother of four who knows quiet is aspirational, which shapes how practical and accessible her approach to prayer is.
RESOURCES & LINKS
 Our Daily Breath Devotional: 365 Prayers and Practices That Whisper Peace in a Shouting World by Kayla Craig — the devotional discussed in this episode
 Thomas Merton — monk and poet quoted in Kayla's devotion on stillness
 Thomas Keating — contemplative teacher who shaped Kayla's spiritual formation
 Breath by James Nestor — journalist's exploration of breathing, including the rosary study
 Centering prayer, welcoming prayer, and breath prayer — contemplative practices Kayla recommends
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What if memories were real entities that inhabit places, and what if music could give those places a voice?
In this episode of Makers & Mystics, Stephen Roach sits down with composer Michael Anderson to explore the strange and beautiful relationship between memory, time, place, music, and faith.
Michael's latest work, Hallov, is a 24-piece musical journey through birth, pain, joy, death, and what might come after. Described by Michael as “a movie score without the movie,” the album follows a protagonist through a series of imagined spaces while a mysterious “Spirit of Time” moves alongside him.
For Michael, those spaces are more than settings. They are repositories of memory. An old church, a car ride, a hallway, a family dinner- places can hold the people we loved, the moments we experienced, and even the versions of ourselves we have left behind.
Together, Stephen and Michael explore how music can give those memories a voice and how recurring melodies can function almost like memories themselves, returning throughout the album in different forms as the story unfolds.
The conversation moves from Michael's childhood fascination with spaces to the autobiographical memories woven throughout Hallov, including a Wednesday night dinner with his grandparents, leaving Florida for a new chapter of life, and the haunting experience of imagining one's own death.
Along the way, they explore the spiritual questions underneath the music: What happens to our memories when we enter eternity? Does the hope of new creation mean that our painful experiences are erased, or might they somehow be gathered into wholeness? And what might it mean to believe that even our tears and suffering have a place in the story God is making new?
At the heart of the conversation is a deeper question: What if memory is not simply something we carry from the past, but a place where we encounter the mystery of who we have been, who we are becoming, and who we might be in eternity?
For artists, Michael offers another important invitation: to resist the temptation to stop creating because someone else has created something greater. The joy of art isn't found in being the best. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply finish the work we've begun—and celebrate that it exists.
Michael Anderson is a composer who blends classical music with jazz, pop, electronics, and soundscapes. He is drawn to memorable melodies and heartfelt narratives, using music as a way to explore story, memory, and human experience. His latest project, Hallov, brings together his love of cinematic music and storytelling in an immersive 24-piece exploration of time, memory, faith, death, and hope.
Connect with Michael on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicbymichaelanderson/
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What happens when the art form you once loved becomes a way of proving your worth?
For oboist, educator, and author Merideth Estevez, classical music began as a source of joy and wonder. As a child, it was even a language through which she experienced God. But somewhere along the way, the pursuit of excellence became entangled with perfectionism, achievement, and the need to prove herself.
In her book Art Is How God Loves Us, Merideth invites us to reconsider what art actually is. Rather than seeing art as something reserved for the technically gifted, she describes it as “atoms responding to transcendence”—our participation in the creative abundance already at work in the world.
In this conversation, we talk about the difference between perfectionism and excellence, what an oboe reed can teach us about faith, why imperfection can be a sign of life, and how technical training can become a vocabulary rather than a prison. We explore the relationship between tradition and innovation, the ways art can become a spiritual gateway, and what it might mean to encounter God through a symphony, a painting, a river, or even the ordinary creative choices of everyday life.
Ultimately, Merideth offers an invitation to see ourselves differently: not as people who have to earn our worth through what we create, but as people made in the image of an Artist—and therefore already invited to create.
Merideth Estevez is an oboist, educator, author, and coach whose work explores the intersection of creativity, faith, and wellbeing. She is the author of Art Is How God Loves Us and The Artist's Joy.
In this episode:
Redefining art as “atoms responding to transcendence”
The difference between perfectionism and excellence
Tradition, innovation, and learning the rules so we can break them
Art as a spiritual gateway
Finding God in unexpected works of art
Why you don't have to consider yourself an artist to create
Learn more about Merideth Estevez and her work at artistsforjoy.org.
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We live in a world of fast content, instant communication, next-day shipping, and things designed to be quickly replaced. But what happens when an artist chooses to work against the grain of social norms? 
Jake Weidmann is one of only nine Master Penmen in the world, but his work extends far beyond calligraphy. A multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, oil painting, sculpture, wood carving, and bronze, Jake has devoted himself to the long process of mastering his craft.
In this conversation, Jake shares what he calls “The Art of Slow” and why the slow, contemplative devotion to excellence might be a way of resisting disposability and recovering a long, even eternal view of our calling as makers.
Jake shares about his new book, The Heart of The Maker, and the creative process from practice and inspiration to failure, perseverance, repentance, and finishing well. 
This is a conversation about craft, patience, tradition, creativity, and the things we choose to make that might outlast us.
Jake Weidmann is a multidisciplinary artist and one of the world's nine living Master Penmen. His work explores calligraphy, drawing, painting, sculpture, wood carving, and the relationship between creativity, faith, and tradition. 
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How do the images we see shape the way we understand ourselves and one another?
In this episode of Makers & Mystics, Stephen Roach sits down with art historian and author Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt to explore her new book, Look Like a Lady: Five Visual Tropes of Womanhood and How to See Ourselves Differently.
Drawing from centuries of art history, Elissa identifies five recurring ways women have been depicted and understood: Venus, Vessel, Maiden, Mother, and Monster. These aren't simply artistic categories. They are stories that can quietly shape our expectations about beauty, femininity, motherhood, sexuality, agency, and even holiness.
Together, Stephen and Elissa explore how these visual tropes have influenced both popular culture and Christian imagination and consider the alternative stories that can help us see women as whole, particular, embodied people rather than objects, symbols, or stereotypes.
The conversation moves from ancient Greek sculpture and Renaissance paintings to Victorian photography, contemporary beauty culture, purity culture, and the ways women are represented within the church.
Along the way, Elissa introduces five counter-stories:
Witnessing instead of objectifying
Being instead of becoming an empty vessel for someone else's meaning
Moving instead of remaining passive or contained
Cultivating instead of being reduced to motherhood
Partnering instead of viewing men and women as threats or opposites
At the heart of the conversation is a deeper question: What might it look like to recover a vision of womanhood rooted not in cultural expectations, but in the particularity, dignity, agency, and belovedness of each person created in the image of God?
For artists, this conversation offers an invitation to consider how the images we create participate in forming the imagination of the people who encounter them.
And for all of us, it raises an important possibility: perhaps freedom doesn't come from simply rejecting old stories, but from learning to recognize them—and telling truer ones.
Elissa Weichbrodt is an art historian, educator, and author. Her new book, Look Like a Lady: Five Visual Tropes of Womanhood and How to See Ourselves Differently, examines the ways visual culture has shaped our understanding of womanhood and offers a more expansive, hopeful vision.
Connect with Elissa on Instagram: http://instagram.com/elissabrodt
Get the book: https://bakerbookhouse.com/products/9781587436925_look-like-a-lady
Listen to our previous conversation with Elissa: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s11-e07-redeeming-vision-with-dr-elissa-yukiko-weichbrodt/id1090123738?i=1000605110237
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