Changing Lives with Wendi Gordon

My guest today is Wendi Gordon, a mental and spiritual health writer, speaker, and coach. Wendi writes for various digital media outlets, including her own “Changing Lives” newsletter, where she shares her mental and spiritual health struggles and the resources and practices that have helped her change her life to help others change theirs. Wendi talks with me about how she chose to become a pastor, the art of writing in a church environment, including having a weekly prompt and having to deliver the product to a live audience; how sermon writing has influenced her current writing; her surprise decision to move to Maui from Pennsylvania and why she moved to Texas; what she’s learned from spending time in nature, and a lot more. 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Introduction
01:18 Wendi’s early creative experiences and the influence of writing in her life.
02:42 The creativity involved in being a pastor and related social work.
03:56 Journey to becoming a pastor inspired by a mentor.
06:22 Life-changing move from Pennsylvania to Maui and experiences in Hawaii.
08:21 Return to pastoral work and the impact of the pandemic on her career.
10:45 Facing political and denominational challenges in the church.
14:37 Transition from pastoral work to freelance writing and coaching.
17:18 The process of writing sermons and the influence of the church lectionary.
20:16 Facing public speaking and feedback as a pastor.
22:53 Unexpected reactions to sermons and dealing with feedback.
25:49 The creative process in freelancing and article pitching.
28:32 Bringing personal struggles into writing and helping others.
32:04 Addressing mental and spiritual health and the challenges faced.
36:41 The intertwining of mental health with societal and political realities.
39:17 Sharing personal experiences to connect and help others.
42:14 Deconstruction and leaving behind harmful religious beliefs.
44:13 Viewing creativity as a spiritual experience.
47:27 Influence of nature and photography on creativity.
51:20 Spiritual and collective experiences at Bruce Springsteen concerts.
54:11 Impact of travel and different cultures on creativity.
57:04 Digital detox and the importance of being present in nature.
58:44 Encouragement to engage with nature and stillness.

Show Links: Wendi Gordon

Wendi’s website

LinkedIn

Gumroad (Nature + Nurture and Depression and Anxiety Survival Guide ebooks, and Spiritual Support for Weary Souls group, starting in May 2025)

Nature Photography on Redbubble

List of recommended books

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Transcript: Wendi Gordon

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. My guest today is Wendi Gordon, a mental and spiritual health writer, speaker, and coach. Wendi writes for various digital media outlets, including her own Changing Lives newsletter, where she shares her mental and spiritual health struggles and the resources and practices that have helped her change her life to help others change theirs. Wendi talks with me about how she chose to become a pastor, the art of writing in a church environment, including having a weekly prompt and having to deliver the product to a live audience, how sermon writing has influenced her current writing, her surprise decision to move to Maui from Pennsylvania, and why she moved back to Texas, what she’s learned from spending time in nature, and a lot more.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:01]:
Here’s my conversation with Wendi Gordon. Wendi, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.

Wendi Gordon [00:01:08]:
Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:11]:
So I start everybody off with the same question. Were you a creative kid, or did you discover your creative side later on?

Wendi Gordon [00:01:18]:
Kind of a mixture of both. I remember as a very young child for school, I think it was a school assignment. It might have been just for fun, creating this little picture book where I I drew this dog and wrote a story about the dog. And then as I got older, I remember in high school, writing poetry for school assignments and writing a short story that I had enjoyed writing. And then in college, my college professor, gave us the freedom to write a paper about anything we chose. So I wrote mine about Bruce Springsteen because I’m a huge lifelong fan. And I specifically analyzed the lyrics to his song growing up and how they related to to his childhood based on his biography and so forth. So that was that was a creative moment in college that I loved.

Wendi Gordon [00:02:10]:
And my former career is as a pastor, so, of course, I had to, come up with my own sermons each week, and that required a degree of creativity of relating the bible text to life today and, you know, gathering assorted quotes and examples. So, yeah, kind kind of a mixture. I was always an avid reader as a child. I devoured every Nancy Drew book, every Hardy Boys book, Encyclopedia Brown, you name it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:40]:
Big mystery fan.

Wendi Gordon [00:02:42]:
Yep. Still am. The novels I read now most often are murder mysteries. Although I read more nonfiction than fiction these days, but fiction is a welcome escape when I need it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:53]:
Yeah. I would imagine that there is a lot more creativity in being a pastor than most people would think. Think anytime you’re dealing with lots of people.

Wendi Gordon [00:03:05]:
Yeah. It’s definitely like they say about about social work, which is my undergrad degree, it’s both an art and a science. Because, yeah, every time I visit someone, I don’t know what they’re gonna say, or, you know, obviously, I can’t, like, have a script in advance of how I’m gonna respond. So, yes, there is definitely more creativity than than one might think, not just with writing the sermons and the church newsletter, but with planning funeral services with families, just counseling grieving families, the gamut.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:38]:
Wow. Yeah. How how did you find writing sermons? I mean well, let’s actually let’s back up a little bit. How did you end up deciding to become a pastor in the first place? Especially, did did it come through social work, or did it come from somewhere else?

Wendi Gordon [00:03:56]:
No. It, in high school, I decided I was going to be a pastor because, the pastor of the church my family attended at the time, I just utterly adored. He he and I’m still in touch with him and his wife. His wife was my high school English teacher, so I became very close to both of them. They’re like my second parents. And so it started out as, you know, he’s my hero. I wanna be like him. And so I went to college knowing I was I was planning to go on to seminary and be a pastor.

Wendi Gordon [00:04:27]:
And so I I didn’t quite have a second major in theology, but I was close with all the the theology classes I took, and I took biblical Greek in college before I went to seminary. So, yeah, like I said, it started out as just he’s my hero, and I wanna be like him. And then I I felt more of an an inner call, like, yeah. This is really what I’m I’m meant to do. And, so then after graduating from college, I went to seminary, which is a four year graduate degree program, and then went on to be a pastor.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:05]:
So how did you end up picking social work rather than theology as a degree?

Wendi Gordon [00:05:10]:
I did that intentionally because I knew I would be basically studying nothing but theology to in my graduate work and also that as a pastor, I’d be doing a lot of counseling. So to me, it was logical to to wanna get, you know, the the counseling skills from the social work degree and to have kind of a a fallback career if being a pastor didn’t work out.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:32]:
Sounds like good logic to me. And I’d imagine that that you drew on that a lot.

Wendi Gordon [00:05:39]:
Definitely. Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:41]:
Yeah. So then was it everything you thought it was gonna be?

Wendi Gordon [00:05:47]:
At first, yes. The early years. But, multiple things happen now. My my first call in Pennsylvania after I graduated from seminary was wonderful. I loved it. I was there five years as their only full time pastor, only staff member period other than, the admin assistant. But then my husband, who I met at seminary, we went to Hawaii to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. At that at that point, we had both been pastors for about five years.

Wendi Gordon [00:06:22]:
Anyway, we utterly fell in love with Hawaii to the extent that we were already talking on the plane ride home about moving there. And we got back to Pennsylvania, put our house on the market. And when it finally sold a year later, we took the first offer we got. We re both resigned our positions as pastors and drove across the country to ship our car to Maui and bought our one way plane tickets and landed on Maui. No jobs lined up, no place to live, took whatever tourist jobs we could get and, ended up living there for ten years. Utterly loved it. Still miss it. So, yeah, that was kind of the first career interruption, if you will.

Wendi Gordon [00:07:05]:
And then we left Maui because we both did wanna get back to being pastors, pastors, and there was only one church of our denomination on the island of Maui, that which we were active in, but it already had a pastor. So, yeah, so then, long story short, we we both became pastors again. And then in 2020, the pandemic hit, and that changed everything. You know? First, we had to quickly pivot to doing services online, which the church had not done before. And we had to actually use my husband’s cell phone to record just the two of us and the organist doing a service and then, you know, put the recording out because the the sanctuary didn’t have Internet. But, anyway, as things progressed with the pandemic, of course, church offerings went down because people weren’t coming in person. And, on top of that, there was the whole political overlay of, you know, safety precautions, should we or shouldn’t we follow them. And, my husband and I were of the strong opinion that we should follow them, CDC guidelines, and our church council was not.

Wendi Gordon [00:08:21]:
And so they, abruptly decided we needed to be gone because we were being unreasonable. Wow. And that also reinforced the fact that, we did not support Trump, who they very much did. So, yeah, that’s basically what ended my career as a pastor and led me to become a freelance writer and speaker and poet.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:44]:
It seems like a pretty big sign that there was not a fit there, to say the least.

Wendi Gordon [00:08:49]:
The sad thing is that when that happened, we thought, okay. You know, no big deal. We’ll we’ll go be pastors of other congregations. That was actually the only congregation my husband and I were co pastors of. Prior to that, we had each served our own. And so we each began interviewing, and it soon became apparent that other congregations basically shared the views of the council of the one we had left, which was odd because our denomination is, you know, known as being progressive that and has openly gay, this bishops and pastors, you know, transgender, the whole everything was fine. But, you know, the the church’s official positions don’t necessarily, match those of the people in the pews. Right.

Wendi Gordon [00:09:40]:
And, we discovered just how true that was. And as we interviewed with different places and, you know, just I I realized first there’s no way I can’t in good conscious stay silent and pretend all of this is okay and compatible with, you know, Jesus’ teachings and example. And then my husband realized that later when he interviewed with the church that had omitted a prayer honoring June 9 Juneteenth. And when my husband asked them why, they said that, prayers like that, you know, made members mad. And and he said he didn’t think white supremacy was part of God’s kingdom, and the council president looked him in the eye and said, I disagree. That was the end of his career efforts to be a pastor. Wow. Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:10:30]:
It is mind blowing, really.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:33]:
I mean, on the one hand, I suppose credit for being honest, but at the same

Wendi Gordon [00:10:40]:
time, wow. Wow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:45]:
Yep. Wow. Oh my. That’s that is that is something. And I’m, I mean, I’m also thinking so you mentioned you started out in Pennsylvania. Were you Right. Are you originally from Pennsylvania?

Wendi Gordon [00:11:05]:
No. We both happened to go to seminary there, so and so we met there, but I’m originally from New Orleans, and he’s originally from Oregon.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:12]:
Okay. I’m just curious because I’m originally from Pennsylvania. So, I don’t know what part of Pennsylvania you were in, but

Wendi Gordon [00:11:20]:
The seminary was in Gettysburg, and then my first call was in Williamsport. Before that, my internship was in the Allentown area. And then, yeah, my first call was in Williamsport, and my husband served two very rural churches, one in Avis and one in Renovo.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:37]:
Okay. I grew up in York, so not that far from Gettysburg. And I went to Bucknell, so not that far from Williamsport. So same same kinda areas. But, you know, as you were were talking about that, I thought, wow. You know, Hawaii is wildly different from Pennsylvania. So different from Pennsylvania. I mean Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:56]:
That’s such a such a culture shock.

Wendi Gordon [00:12:00]:
And I think that’s why we were so drawn to Hawaii.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:03]:
Yeah. It

Wendi Gordon [00:12:04]:
was the the openness and the the spiritual vibe of the place and the and the the other big piece, honestly, was the underwater world. You know, once I snorkeled for the first time, I was, like, utterly enchanted in love and wanted to do that as often as possible.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:20]:
Yeah. For sure. For sure. And and, you know, I haven’t been to Hawaii, but I have been to New Zealand, which I think is relatively similar. And it’s funny because, you know, I grew up in Pennsylvania. I live in New Jersey now, And I’ve known people for a long time who would say, you know, oh, I love the mountains. And I was like, yeah. Okay.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:42]:
They’re mountains. You know, whatever. And then I went to New Zealand, and I was on South Island in the Southern Alps. And I was like, oh, now I get it. Now I get it. You know? And I come back here and I’m like, it’s flat. Yeah. So I think it’s it’s probably, you know, a similar vibe.

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:59]:
You go to Hawaii and it’s a completely different landscape and you go, oh, wow. I wanna be here all the time, which is much how I felt around the mountains in New Zealand. So yeah. So leaving must have been really rough.

Wendi Gordon [00:13:14]:
It was very hard, but, initially, we we just moved from Maui to Oahu because Oahu is, you know, the by far the largest population even though it’s smaller geographically. It’s where Honolulu is. And, anyway, so, we moved there for my husband to take a a part time call as a pastor on Oahu, and then I later got a part time call at another church on Oahu. So we were there for a few years, but both calls were very part time, didn’t provide health insurance, was not financially sustainable. So, that brought us to Texas. That was the ultimate culture shock. Yeah. Because, ironically, I had gone to college in Texas, at Texas Lutheran University.

Wendi Gordon [00:13:57]:
And at that point, Anne Richards was governor, and it was a very different state than it is now.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:04]:
Yeah. Wow. That is that is three massive changes in a row. Mhmm.

Wendi Gordon [00:14:10]:
Wow. And Hawaii was the longest we had ever lived anywhere. We were on Maui for ten years in Oahu for five. So

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:18]:
So I’m curious. I mean, when you when you both decided, okay, this is obviously the end of this career road. I mean, first of all, it must have come as a shock even though it it sounds like it kind of didn’t come as a shock. It sounds like in in a way you sort of saw it coming.

Wendi Gordon [00:14:37]:
We did not see the the first one coming when the council forced us out. There had literally been no prior discussions with us about the possibility of us resigning, about them being, you know, really angry. I mean, there was like I said, when when we wanted to follow the safety protocols and they didn’t, like, we disagreed about that and we talked about it in meetings, but there wasn’t, like, this, you know, sense that, you know, we’re so mad we want to fire you or anything like that. So we literally came back from a a vacation we had already postponed once due to COVID. And the day we got back, the council president summoned us to a meeting and informed us that they had decided in our absence they wanted us gone immediately within two weeks. Wow. So that was a major shock. We did not remotely see that coming.

Wendi Gordon [00:15:26]:
We were blown away. And so, yeah, that part, we did not see coming. But like I said, then we figured, okay. We’ll just interview with other churches and, you know, still continue our career. So then, you know, that part came as a shock as did okay. What the heck are we gonna do now? Because a master’s degree from seminary is useless to do anything else.

Nancy Norbeck [00:15:48]:
Yeah. You

Wendi Gordon [00:15:50]:
know, we’re both in our fifties. In fact, he just turned 60. So that’s the point we’re at now. You know, I figured out I what I want to do in terms of the freelance writing and the speaking and the coaching, but I haven’t yet figured out how to make it financially viable. And my husband is currently driving for Uber after spending more than a year trying to get any job he could get, basically.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:14]:
Yeah. I mean, I I would think that there would have to be transferable skills there. I mean, you mentioned the writing. You know?

Wendi Gordon [00:16:25]:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, he’s he’s a like me, I mean, both of us obviously did a lot of counseling and a lot were in very much leadership roles, could easily, you know, be manager somewhere, whatever. But like I said, he just turned 60. Right. So he’s faces, you know, the the few companies that, you know, responded to all the resumes he sent out and actually set up an interview. Once they saw him on Zoom or in person and could tell how old he was, suddenly, he was ghosted. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:54]:
Ageism was a ghost.

Wendi Gordon [00:16:55]:
That from other people too. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s go back because because we had talked a little bit earlier, and then I took us back farther

Wendi Gordon [00:17:05]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:17:05]:
About, you know, the the writing and and, you know, coming up with sermon topics and stuff like that because it’s not a type of writing that we hear about a whole lot. And I’m curious about, like, how how did that sort of thing come together for you? Is that part of what appealed to you about the job of being a pastor, or was it more this is the part that I have to do so that I can go be around people? Like, how did how did it all fit in for you, and then how did it work out in practice?

Wendi Gordon [00:17:33]:
I always loved writing sermons. Although I you know, if I had to pick between the two, I would say what I loved more, the one on one conversations with people in in hard situations and and helping them get through hard times. But I always loved writing sermons. And the as far as the process, in my denomination, like many, there there are assigned, bible passages to be read in church, and then the sermon is based on one or more of those Bible text. So I had a starting point like, okay. You know, whatever I say has to be related to this. But beyond that, I would, somewhat like with my writing now, if I’m doing an investigative feature article, you know, I I would research, like, what other biblical scholars had written about that text or that book of the Bible, for context. And then, the rest was just, you know, me creatively, like, okay.

Wendi Gordon [00:18:33]:
How does this relate to life now? What can I say that would be would speak to today’s realities and be meaningful and helpful to people? And sometimes I I would end up in a completely different place than when I started writing the sermon, and I would be surprised by what I ended up with. I consider that just the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And, so, yeah, I I’m the kind of writer. Like, I don’t start with a a three point outline, headings, subheadings. I never have in, you know, throughout my life in school or wherever, term papers, nothing. I’m the type that I sit down, and I usually write the whole thing in one sitting, just stream of consciousness. But I’m also a perfectionist, so I edit as I go. So my first draft is often also my final draft, but it it rarely like, I don’t have the fully formed idea when I start writing it.

Wendi Gordon [00:19:29]:
It often goes somewhere totally unexpected.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:33]:
Yeah. It sounds sounds a lot like what I do. I write to find out what the heck I have to say. Yes. Yeah. And that’s interesting in that that context where you have you’re you’re what you’re describing is essentially, you know, the the church lectionary gives you a prompt every week. Exactly. It’s like a writing prompt.

Wendi Gordon [00:19:53]:
Yes. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:19:54]:
And you’re left to riff on it in whatever way you choose, which is actually kinda cool. Kinda like your job gives you this prompt, and you go and you do something with it, and then you get up and read it to people every week, which is actually kind of daunting. I think most writers would love the weekly prompt part, but if you told them they had to get up and read it to an audience then every Sunday morning, they would run screaming.

Wendi Gordon [00:20:16]:
Yeah. Supposedly, you know, fear of public speaking is, like, even greater than the fear of death or for for a lot of people. Yeah. Never at all intimidated by public speaking. And the irony is that I’m an introvert. Most people are surprised by that because I’m so used to being in leadership roles and so comfortable, like, leading group discussions, teaching, what what have you. But I’m very much about, authenticity and and meaningful genuine connections and not wasting time with small talk. So, like, I never went to cocktail parties, Christmas parties, anything that I didn’t have to go to.

Wendi Gordon [00:20:56]:
And, like, when I was an employee of other places, when they would have, like, the office Christmas party, You know, I always had an excuse why I I couldn’t go.

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:08]:
I know that feeling so very, very, very well. How was it getting cause I imagine, you know, everybody has an opinion when you’ve gotten up and you’ve you’ve read the sermon on Sunday mornings. How was it getting that kind of real time feedback every single week?

Wendi Gordon [00:21:26]:
Honestly, I got a lot less feedback than you might think. People would shake my hand and say, you know, good sermon, or they would say, you know, I really needed to hear that. But they they wouldn’t elaborate beyond that. You know? So it’s like, okay. What did you like about it? How did it speak to you? I never knew that. And if they didn’t say anything at all, you know, did that mean they didn’t like the sermon and, you know, didn’t feel comfortable telling me that, or did that just mean, you know, they had other things on their mind and didn’t feel the need to comment? You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:21:57]:
Yeah. Was that frustrating, or was did you just kinda shrug and say, okay. That’s just how it is?

Wendi Gordon [00:22:03]:
Yeah. I I I mean, I quickly got used to that just being how it is, but there were times when it was frustrating. Yes. And it was also interesting because sometimes, you know, the sermon that I had, you know, really wrestled with and spent the most time on and and been very satisfied with the end product kinda seemed to fall flat And others that I thought, you know, this really sucks, but it it’s all I’ve got. You know, people would rave about it. So yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:31]:
I you know, it’s funny that you say that because I definitely remember having that kind of experience, especially in the creative writing course I took my freshman year in in undergrad. I would get so frustrated because the things that I really worked on were the things that the professor would tear apart, and the stuff that I would literally sit down and write twenty minutes before class, she loved.

Wendi Gordon [00:22:54]:
And I

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:54]:
was like, what is up with this? And yet, thinking about that now, I I kinda wonder, you know, the things that I really worked on, was I being such a perfectionist that I took everything that was good out of it because I was trying so hard to make it really good, and the stuff that I wrote twenty minutes before class, I didn’t have time to do that with. I was literally just throwing stuff down on a piece of paper, and so it was what it was, and she got what she got, and and maybe that made it better. I don’t know.

Wendi Gordon [00:23:30]:
Yeah. I don’t know either. And and I’ve experienced that with, pitching articles to publications also. Like, I you know, some pitches because I’m such a perfectionist and I edit as I go, you know, I’ll spend, like, three hours writing a a brief pitch, and and that one will get rejected. And then there’ll be another one that I’m I’m, like, pressed for time or desperate for income. You know? So I just, like, spend twenty minutes really quickly, you know, and that’s the one that gets accepted. You know? So

Nancy Norbeck [00:23:59]:
You know, I I think there is probably something to that, and there may be more to it than just that. But I suspect that the things that we do that that we slave over that way and, you know, try so hard to catch every single little detail and every single thing. You know, it’s sort of like there’s a a Nathaniel Hawthorne story called The Birthmark that I remember reading in high school or undergrad somewhere. And and it’s basically it’s been a long time, so I may, you know, what I I really remember one detail about this story, so if I mess it up, that’s why. But, you know, it’s this scientist who has this eminently beautiful wife, and the only thing that’s imperfect about her is this birthmark on her face, and he is obsessed with removing this birthmark. And I’m pretty sure that, you know, the upshot is when he removes the birthmark, she dies. And so, you know, the thing that that made her imperfect is the thing that gave her life in a way. And so, you know, don’t don’t be in such a hurry to make things perfect because you take the life out of them.

Nancy Norbeck [00:25:10]:
And so yeah. I mean, I’m I’m kind of noticing that now. I’m teaching this make bad art course that’s all about, you know, stop trying to be so perfect about everything. And we are having so much fun because that’s what happens when you stop doing that. So it does it does make sense to me that when you just sit down and you write the pitch and you send it and you don’t overthink it and you get out of your own way, it’s probably gonna land better with somebody. And the same thing with, you know, when you do the opposite, you you take all the good stuff out of it. So, you know, maybe that’s what we were doing.

Wendi Gordon [00:25:49]:
The funny thing for me is I I don’t think I really take the good stuff out of it when I edit and overthink. But what I do is, like, obsess over the wording of every phrase and, like, how can I make this better? And often, I’ll, like, say try three different alternatives and end up going back to the original one.

Nancy Norbeck [00:26:08]:
That’s the thing. I’m not sure all of us are are are necessarily aware that when we over edit that the first one was the best one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s the thing. It’s like you try so hard and you don’t realize what you had first was the better one.

Wendi Gordon [00:26:25]:
It’s fine. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:26:26]:
Yeah. You just get so hung up on all these little details that you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Wendi Gordon [00:26:32]:
And I know as much as I know and hear over and over in terms of writing advice, you know, don’t edit as you go. Write a shitty first draft and come back to it the next day to edit, you know, batch your task, all that stuff. I I seem to be incapable of it. I mean, I I try to, but, you know, I I noticed that I’ve misspelled a word or whatever it might be. I cannot leave it unfixed. And so, yeah, it’s frustrating, and it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to write a short amount of text. But then the flip side is, you know, when I submit something to an editor, a lot of times, they will publish my first draft as is, and they, like, can’t believe they don’t have to do the editing they’re used to doing or have me revise and revise it. So it’s a mixed bag.

Wendi Gordon [00:27:18]:
Yes. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the first draft, but a lot of times, the first draft doesn’t require all the time revising it that other people spend. So

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:27]:
Yeah. You’re really doing multiple drafts at the same time.

Wendi Gordon [00:27:30]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:32]:
Yeah. And I’m like you. If I know I’ve misspelled a word, I have to go fix it because I can’t I can’t let it go. Yeah. And I can’t focus on anything else. And I think, you know, I think that that kind of writing advice, and I used to teach writing, I think that that advice is good advice for the bigger picture stuff. You know? If if you’re worrying about does this work, does every sentence work, does every paragraph work, does every scene work? The whole time you’re writing it, you’re never gonna get anywhere. I think you can worry about the typos in the moment because they’re tiny and you just go back and do them.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:09]:
But, also, everybody writes differently. So if what you’re doing is working for you and it’s not getting in your way and doing it the other way would get in your way, do it the way that works for you. I think if we get hung up on doing it according to somebody else’s advice and that advice isn’t working for us, that’s that’s a problem too. So Yeah. You gotta do it the way that works for you and not worry about what everybody else thinks about that.

Wendi Gordon [00:28:38]:
And I am getting better. I still sometimes will literally sit at the computer for eight hours straight and and write something Wow. And want it finished. But I realize, you know, my body needs to move around. My body needs to drink water. My body needs just a break from focusing on this one task. And so now I’ve gotten better about, you know, being able to stop in the middle and go walk in the park or do, you know, whatever, take a dance, put on some music, and come back to it later, sometimes even the next day. And I know that when I do that, yeah, I bring a new focus, creativity.

Wendi Gordon [00:29:12]:
You know, it is better than if I force myself to finish it all at once.

Nancy Norbeck [00:29:17]:
Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:29:17]:
But I got so used to all throughout school. I was a procrastinator. And so the entire term paper, ten, twenty page paper, I wrote the night before it was due. And I always got a’s on it. There were very few red marks on it. I got told how wonderful it was, and so I kept getting reinforced to do

Nancy Norbeck [00:29:34]:
it that way. Isn’t it amazing how that works? You get away with it once, and then you can never convince yourself to do it any other way. Oh, the number of times I tried to convince my students not to wait until the last minute, and it never ever worked. It’s the rare student that manages to do it ahead of time. And I’ll admit, you know, even I have trouble sometimes getting myself to do things in pieces ahead of time, and it’s crazy. But

Wendi Gordon [00:30:03]:
Yeah. The worst part for me was when teachers would require us to submit a little at a time, like, first submit the index cards with your bibliography on them Mhmm. That’s the outline, stuff like that. Because, you know, once I write the paper, sure, I could come up with a great outline, but not before then.

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:20]:
Yeah. I always hated that because I was like, what index cards? I don’t wanna have to do index cards. I wanna just read the articles in the book and write the stinking paper, and then we’ll figure out what the index cards need to be afterwards. Yeah. That doesn’t work when they make you do it that way. Right. I I know I did at least one paper in high school that way. And, of course, could never ever possibly admit that I did it in the wrong order.

Wendi Gordon [00:30:43]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:30:44]:
But but totally did it that way because it made more sense to me to do it that way. So yeah. But I understand why they do it because because then you have to do it pieces at a time, and you aren’t sitting there at the very end scrambling at 3AM to try to write a paper that makes sense. Because no teacher wants to read the paper that made no sense because you wrote it at 03:00 in the morning. Right? Oh, lordy. Oh, writing is such fun. Teaching writing even more so.

Wendi Gordon [00:31:20]:
And do you teach at the college level? Or

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:23]:
I did a semester at the college level after I taught middle school and high school for well, the first two years I was teaching, I taught tech classes, and then I moved into teaching English as a second language, which which is a lot of writing for six years. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So I’m terribly curious since you say you didn’t get a lot of specific feedback. Did you ever have anybody who came up to you and said, man, I really hated that sermon? Was there anything that

Wendi Gordon [00:31:50]:
really No. Okay. There there was yeah. There I mean, one of the dysfunctional things about church culture in general is that people think they need to be good Christians, nice Christians, not fight, not have conflict, and especially with the pastor. I mean, definitely, pastors aren’t put on pedestals the way they used to be now and for good reason with all the abuse scandals and so forth. But, but there was still this sense of, like, respect. And, also, even though I I, like, wasn’t actually their supervisor in any remote sense and had no no power over them as a boss or anything. There’s still that sense, like, I’m the leader of the organization, and they they need to defer to me a little bit.

Wendi Gordon [00:32:33]:
You know? So, yeah, most people were were not brave enough, you know, to say, you know, that really made me mad. Sometimes I could tell by their facial expressions as I was delivering the sermon. The the most obvious example I remember of that is, at the the church whose council forced my husband and I out, the last one we served, the bible text was something like, you know, welcoming foreigners as you would a native and and, you know, caring for widows and orphans and all that. And that was right when the the family’s separation policy was happening and kids literally being taken from their parents’ arms. And so, you know, I said something from the the pulpit about, you know, what we all have different political views, but, you know, surely, we can all agree that taking children away from their parents is wrong. And it turned out, no. We couldn’t all agree on that.

Nancy Norbeck [00:33:34]:
Oh my. Yeah. You would think. And yet yeah. I bet I bet you got some interesting looks.

Wendi Gordon [00:33:46]:
Yeah. And I may have even had a comment or two on that one, but whether or not they said it, you know, their their faces said it and their their huffy attitude or whatever. You know? Right. Because my husband and I both were always so careful to to not have political discussions at church much less, you know, from the pulpit. Like, we never named any politicians by name, and and that was the only time I can think of where we even criticized a specific policy. Because to me, that one was just so extreme. Plus, it just happened to tie right into the bible passage for the day. You know? Sure.

Nancy Norbeck [00:34:19]:
Yeah. You would think that one would be safe.

Wendi Gordon [00:34:22]:
Yeah. And another one that was similar, was that the bible text was about Nathaniel asking Jesus, can anything or saying, can anything good come out of Nazareth when it was first, like, told about Jesus being this great guy he might wanna follow. That was his comment. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And, again, that happened to be the week that Trump made the comment about shithole countries. So I didn’t even criticize the comment. I just referred to it. You know? Like, Nathaniel saying this is kinda like, you know, calling it but, yeah, that also got an angry response. Wow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:35:09]:
Boy. So how have you taken that experience into freelance writing? I mean, do you write about a lot of religious topics Wendi you’re freelancing, or have you broadened out beyond that?

Wendi Gordon [00:35:25]:
Yes to both. What my initial reason for getting into freelance writing was because I was so passionate about how can Christians think that Jesus would be okay with treating people this way. And especially after January 6, you know, they’re they’re violently assaulting people and breaking in as they’re waving their Jesus as Lord flags and you know? So that’s how it started. I wrote four articles for the Texas Observer, which is an independent publication here that were, you know, investigative features, but they also expressed, you know, my personal passion. And, like like, this is what happened. Here’s the link to the official GOP party platform site for Texas, or here’s the video of the governor saying this or, you know, etcetera. And the and here’s, you know, the the Bible passage or the teaching that that clearly is the opposite kind of articles. So, yeah, that that is kind of was my initial my first paid articles were along those lines.

Wendi Gordon [00:36:26]:
But I have, you know, I’ve at this point, I’ve published probably 200 articles, not even counting the ones for my own substack newsletter. And so on and and I started out on Medium. And so, you know, I I would write an article about writing for one publication, an article about travel for another one, or, nature photography essays because that’s, like, my amateur hobby, fun do thing I do for fun. So, yeah, I’ve written about a lot of different topics. And my substack is about mental health. But I am in the process I’m gonna broaden that to mental and spiritual health because, I mean, the two are are so intertwined. You really can’t separate them. And and right now, honestly, almost everyone I know, their mental health is so affected by political realities and their religious language that’s being weaponized against certain marginalized groups that yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:37:23]:
I mean, that they go hand in hand. So

Nancy Norbeck [00:37:26]:
Yeah. It’s really all interconnected

Wendi Gordon [00:37:29]:
in

Nancy Norbeck [00:37:29]:
ways that I don’t think we probably realized even ten years ago, but now it’s so incredibly obvious. Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:37:36]:
Yeah. So much more is out in the open now and, things that in the past would have immediately disqualified a candidate. Now we’re just yeah. Okay. That that’s normal. We’re used to it. You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:37:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Whether we should be used to it or not, apparently.

Wendi Gordon [00:37:53]:
Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:37:54]:
Yeah. So

Wendi Gordon [00:37:58]:
and also the other piece for me in writing about mental and spiritual health is to share my personal experiences. It’s again, it started out as kind of my own need to vent and to process everything I was experiencing. And it kind of evolved from there because the more I shared about my own mental health struggles with depression and anxiety and, you know, my worth as a person being tied to what I achieved versus who I am, and all the ways our culture totally reinforces that all the time. But the more I did that, you know, the more readers resonated and said, thank you so much for being honest about this. And, you know, I used to be so ashamed of it and think it was just me, you know, etcetera, etcetera. So, yeah, that kind of became my mission with with both the investigative writing and with the the mental health writing and speaking and and coaching was, okay, let me let me share what I’ve learned the hard way. And if you can relate to it, maybe some of the same things that helped me and that, you know, are proven with research studies to generally be helpful will spare you some of the pain I went through or at least help bring you out of it. You know? Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:39:17]:
And I found that because I’m a former pastor, especially the spiritual issues, like, it’s life changing for some people to hear that they don’t have to forgive their abuser. Yes. Stuff like that. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:39:31]:
Yes.

Wendi Gordon [00:39:34]:
And they don’t have to believe exactly what they were taught as a kid. Like, women don’t have to be submissive to men to be and and if you’re depressed, it’s not a sign that you don’t have enough faith. And if you just prayed harder or believed more, you’d be fine. All that stuff.

Nancy Norbeck [00:39:48]:
Oh, lordy. I’m so glad you’re writing about this stuff. Because you’re right. Nobody nobody’s really I mean, I suppose it’s happening more now in the age of social media than it ever has before, but there are also plenty of people out there who are still piling on to the opposite ideas on social media. And so there are plenty of people who are still, you know, underneath this piled on idea that you do have to forgive people who’ve been horrible to you, and that you do have to, you know, do whatever the man tells you to do and and all of that kind of stuff, and it’s awful.

Wendi Gordon [00:40:27]:
And on top of that, there’s there’s the shame that so many of us still have inside because we were raised in purity culture or just in general taught that, you know, men have these lusts and can’t control themselves, so it’s up to us to not dress provocatively, to lead them on, all that bullshit. And I mean, there’s just so many different ways that, the Bible or, you know, Christianity or or any religion can be twisted to suit the purposes of a manipulator or an abuser. Same thing with domestic violence. You know, women being counseled, you’ve gotta stay in the marriage. Divorce is wrong, and you’ve gotta forgive and, you know, continue to let them beat the crap out of you. And, yeah, it’s just horrid.

Nancy Norbeck [00:41:14]:
It’s it’s awful. And and I think, you know, if you if you stop and really think about what any of those ideas really mean for any real length of time, it’s very difficult to to miss how horrible they are. But an awful lot of people don’t want to stop and think about that because it benefits them somehow not to. And so we have an awful lot of people suffering in silence because they believe that they have to.

Wendi Gordon [00:41:44]:
Yes. And and now, some people that I have talked with that found the courage to leave their churches because, for instance, they’re LGBTQ, and it was very clear that was not okay in their church or, they got pregnant and weren’t married at the time or whatever reasons it might be or or got a divorce. I mean, that’s more acceptable now, but but whatever. You know? It’s hard to leave a a church family that you’ve been part of.

Nancy Norbeck [00:42:14]:
Yes.

Wendi Gordon [00:42:14]:
I mean, for some of them, they were, like, literally raised in that same church and live in the same town with these people. But even if they weren’t, you know, even after, like, five years, you’ve got close friends there. And it’s very painful and their support important sources of support, And you lose all that when you walk away. And you may or may not want to or be able to find another faith community that is nurturing and supportive and and and, you know, make new friends in. So, yeah, I mean, I I get why it’s hard for people. And also, like you said, they’re they’re so entrenched in the idea that it’s wrong to question anything and that, you know, every word of the Bible is literally true and and, you know, has to be accepted. And so the few verses that their, abusive leader cherry picks to shame them and keep them in their place, it works. And and yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:43:08]:
So and so there’s this whole wilderness journey. You know, a lot of people use the word deconstruction now, of of women, especially, but men too, especially gay men or transgender. You know, they just kinda reach a point where they’re like, no. I I this is not healthy for me, and I don’t really believe that. And but they also are so entrenched in, like, if I don’t believe this, I’m going to hell, and I’m gonna devastate my family. It’s gonna ruin our relationship, etcetera, etcetera. So there’s this whole wilderness period between leaving behind what what doesn’t work for you and figuring out what does. Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:43:51]:
Yeah. It’s it’s rough. And and it’s all because, you know, I I’m thinking of, you know, Joseph Campbell talked about how taking the bible or really any religious text literally is like walking into a restaurant and eating the menu instead of the food that the menu represents.

Wendi Gordon [00:44:13]:
Yes. That’s a great parallel.

Nancy Norbeck [00:44:16]:
And said, you know, there’s an awful lot of menu eating going on in the world.

Wendi Gordon [00:44:21]:
And on top of that, there’s there’s just so much I mean, like, I don’t get how anyone can can believe, like, god literally dictated word for word the bible because there’s too many contradictions within it. Yeah. I mean, direct contradictions like, you know, the obvious example is the book of Genesis. People think they know the the whole creation story, the whole Adam and Eve and, you know, taking a rib from Adam’s side and and the temptation that Eve succumbs to. And, anyway, there are actually two very different creation stories in the book of Genesis, right one right after the other, that that most people don’t even notice unless you study the Bible as carefully as we had to in seminary. And so in one version, like, humans are created first, and then Adam gets to name all the animals. And it’s a whole different order of creation. And the people the humans are created male and female at the same time, like, out of the the dust of the earth, the mud.

Wendi Gordon [00:45:20]:
So it’s it’s just very interesting to me, that that people, you know, totally don’t wanna hear that and get freaked out when I’m like, okay. Here hand me your bible. Read this. Tell me how both could be true. You know? Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:45:34]:
And it’s also a document that’s been translated so many times.

Wendi Gordon [00:45:36]:
Yes. On top of that, it was and we don’t have the original manuscripts. We have fragments of different manuscripts from different Christian communities that, are different. And there’s the whole process by which, you know, who decided which books were worthy of being in the bible and which manuscripts we’re gonna ignore, leave out. And, I mean yeah. Like you said. And then translating from one language to the next, let alone the the scribal areas errors as they copied from the original manuscript to make another copy and Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:46:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. When you start to think about it, you you gotta have some large grains of salt here.

Wendi Gordon [00:46:13]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:46:16]:
Yeah. Well, I’m I’m curious to know because I’ve I’ve been intrigued for a a good while here about the spiritual side of creativity, and I’m curious to know how that comes up for you and how how you see that side. Do you experience creativity as a spiritual thing?

Wendi Gordon [00:46:36]:
100%. Yes. And I also experience that when I do things that nurture my spirit, like walking in nature, nature is probably the place I feel most closely connected to God, most spiritual. There’s just awe and Wendi. And I will stop and watch a heron, for instance, for like an hour or the bunny rabbits chasing each other, the squirrel, whatever animal. I’ve I’ve always been an animal lover. And and so yeah. And just the, you know, with the beautiful flowers, the sunset, take your pick.

Wendi Gordon [00:47:09]:
So but what I noticed is when when I, you know, go for that walk in the park and spend time in nature and then come back to my writing. I am more creative and a lot of ideas come to me. And maybe as I’m walking or I use that that photograph, you know, as the title image for and write an essay about life lessons from I learned from watching herons was literally an article I wrote. So, yes, it’s all related. And the creativity is healing to my spirit to, you know, writing about painful experiences and how they led to where I am now, which is a healthier, better place, even though I wouldn’t wish that hell on anyone, you know, things like that. So and then also the other creativity side of writing is, like, poetry for me. I don’t normally write poetry, but I attended another writer Zoom workshop with with a, like, visualization process and and prompt and ended up writing this beautiful spiritual poem about all of us being in a circle around a campfire and, like, you know, coming together as a as a world. And initially, it was, you know, a few of us that were willing and the circle expanded and expanded.

Wendi Gordon [00:48:27]:
Anyway, like, I never would have written that on my own. It just was like a spiritual thing that came to me as part of that creative workshop. So, yeah, there are so many ways that that writing or creating art. I don’t paint or draw. I’m one of those people, again, because of my perfectionism and probably because, you know, as a kid, I colored outside the lines and, you know, was criticized for it or whatever that I don’t do visual art. But writing is very much a creative outlet for me, and I very much appreciate other people’s art. So Wendi will go to art exhibits and just, you know, admire the sculptures or the pottery or, you know, pottery or, you know, even just art festivals where people are selling what they’ve made. I just looking at it all is very a spiritual experience for me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:49:20]:
Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [00:49:20]:
And it’s my number one. My number one spiritual experiences is going to Bruce Springsteen concerts 100%. And I’m not like the only one who says that. I know I can’t tell you how many other people because it’s one of the few places left where people of all ages, all ethnicities, all orientations take, you know, everything come together and have this shared love of Bruce and his music. And so strangers become Wendi. Like, the one concert I was at, a young black guy sitting next to me, like, as we were exiting the concert gave me a high five and said, wow. You know, I loved watching you dance. You were really into it.

Wendi Gordon [00:50:02]:
And and there’s just so many ways that it it’s a unifying and and just the spiritual energy that that Bruce, you know, spreads to the audience, and and the lyrics to his songs too, of course. But so yeah. I mean, I I think music is just transcends, mirror words and and is a spiritual experience whether you play it or listen to it. So all of that. Yeah. All of the arts to me are are totally spiritual.

Nancy Norbeck [00:50:33]:
It’s it’s so interesting because a year, year and a half ago, I read doctor Keltner’s book, Awe, and he describes six or seven different kinds of awe. And there’s there’s a movement based awe, and there’s I know music is one of them, and there’s something about groups. I wish I could remember this better off the top of my head, but it’s been a while. And and, like, what happens at a concert like that combines a couple of them, so it’s not at all surprising that that you talk about it that way. And, you know, I mean, here I am in New Jersey, so obviously Bruce is a pretty big thing here. Right. I mean, I didn’t really feel like I was an official Jersey resident till I bought my first Bruce Springsteen album, I will admit. And I remember thinking, okay.

Nancy Norbeck [00:51:23]:
I think maybe they’ll let me stay now. But, you know, he he just, you know, late late summer, early fall, did the concert at Asbury Park, which

Wendi Gordon [00:51:34]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:51:34]:
Obviously was a big thing, and I didn’t know about it until after it happened. But I was watching the video the next day thinking, man, it would have been really, really cool to be there for that. Like, I’m not I’m not the level of Bruce Springsteen fan that you are, but still, it was like, it would have been really fun to just be in that crowd and be part of that experience. So so yeah. I mean, that’s that’s just a completely different different level of event to be a part of. And you are a part of that Mhmm. Just by virtue of being in that crowd in a way that you’re not if and absolutely no shade toward classical music at all, but it’s a different experience if you go to hear, like, the Philadelphia Orchestra. Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:17]:
You’re not participating in that experience in the same way.

Wendi Gordon [00:52:22]:
Yes. I agree.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:23]:
You know, you’re kind of absorbing it, but you’re not participating in it in in that same way.

Wendi Gordon [00:52:30]:
Yeah. It’s not like you can sing along, and there’s usually not dancing.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:34]:
No. You’re more letting it wash over you, which is a very valid thing all on its own. It’s just different.

Wendi Gordon [00:52:40]:
Right. It’s calming and it can still be spiritual, but, yeah, just not in the same way.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:45]:
Yeah. And also when you talk about walking, I mean, creative people have been talking about the the creative juices of of going for a walk and how it inspires them for centuries.

Wendi Gordon [00:52:55]:
Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [00:52:56]:
I mean, that’s that’s well documented. It you know, you get stuck, get up, and go for a walk. Mhmm. Just get out of your head. Go move your body. Go look at other stuff. Go for a walk. Watch the herons.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:10]:
See what you learn.

Wendi Gordon [00:53:12]:
And the other thing is mood wise. When I’m anxious, walking in the park is about the only thing that totally calms me and puts me at peace. Because, again, I’m in the moment. I’m watching those animals. I don’t know what I’m gonna see next. I have to pay attention to my environment totally, and it’s a new environment every time, even if it’s the same park because, you know, the animals are in different places or I see different ones or whatever. So, yeah, that and and the same thing with Bruce concerts because, again, I’m I’m totally in the moment there. For those three hours, I’m, like, on this nonstop adrenaline high.

Wendi Gordon [00:53:50]:
You know? So, yeah, it it it’s very different than, just everyday life.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:58]:
Yeah. For sure. I wanted to ask you too how your your travel experience has influenced your creativity, if you think it has.

Wendi Gordon [00:54:11]:
Yeah. I think it definitely has. Again, with with whenever I travel for one thing, it’s it’s either to a tropical beach destination where I can snorkel because the the whole underwater world is another very spiritual place for me. Sea turtles, like, if I had a spiritual animal that maybe and maybe I do, that I actually have my one and only tattoo I got in my forties is of a sea turtle on my ankle. And, I mean, I snorkel behind them beside them almost every day, like, close enough that I could have reached out and touched them. And and they’re just, like, you know, so serene as they they swim past with their flippers or they’re just resting on the bottom and and come Anyway, all of the underwater world, just the colors and the unexpected sites and the the whole ecosystem is just magical to me, as is water in general. You know, the the park I walk at has a lake and the herons are usually there and sometimes pelicans and ducks with their ducklings and all that. I just love water.

Wendi Gordon [00:55:18]:
But so my travels in general, yes. My husband and I got to go to Fiji Years ago, and that was a different kind of spiritual experience. We got to sit sit with the villagers and the chief and the kava ceremony, drinking kava and also their top of cloth, you know, ink artwork is, you know, clearly, like, infused with their spirit too and and very meaningful. The culture of Hawaii, of course, the the goddess Pele and the volcano. Yeah. Just the kind of the the land and the people just kind of exude this the spirituality.

Nancy Norbeck [00:56:03]:
Yeah. Have you brought any of that into any of the things that you’ve written since you’ve settled in Texas?

Wendi Gordon [00:56:12]:
Yeah. Like I said, I I sometimes do nature photography essays. So I’ve written two different ones about the underwater world that that include my underwater photos of of marine animals. And then I I wrote the essay about life lessons from watching a heron, and I had literally watched a heron catch a fish. And so, you know, I I mean, the heron would, like, stay in one place intently focused for, like, thirty minutes without moving at all and then stealthily creep forward and then strike, spear the fish, and then swallow it. And so, you know, I wrote about how that taught me patience, that focus, determination, those kinds of lessons. And I wrote another one about, life lessons from butterflies. Butterflies have always, to me, symbolized transformation, new life, you know, etcetera, etcetera.

Wendi Gordon [00:57:04]:
And so, I wrote about that. So, yes, definitely, I I have incorporated the two. And I also, uploaded a bunch of my photos to, a site called Redbubble where, like, people that want to can can get them on stickers or as postcards or, all kinds of other mug coffee mugs, cell phone case that that others create and ship. But I just upload the photos. And And so it hasn’t been a moneymaker. But the main reason I did it is I just wanted other people to see my cool photos and admire them, like, have as much fun seeing them as I had taking them. So, yeah, all of that is very much part of my creativity and my spirituality.

Nancy Norbeck [00:57:51]:
Well, make sure I get the link to that so that I can put that in the show notes so people can check them out.

Wendi Gordon [00:57:56]:
Oh, and that that one more thing related to that. I created an ebook called Nature and Nurture. That’s my favorite project I’ve ever done, like, of all my creative work. And I’ll give you the link to that too. It’s on Gumroad. But but it is literally like, I took my best nature photos, and I paired them with short original quotes that I came up with that clearly related to the photo. And together, they they tell a story about the importance of embracing our uniqueness instead of hiding it and how human diversity is just as beautiful as the diversity in nature. And, like, you know, there’s, like, the picture of one flower still in the bud and another one blooming about how, you know, different people bloom at different times, and and, you know, that that’s okay.

Wendi Gordon [00:58:44]:
You know, flowers don’t compete with each other or think the one that blooms first is better.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:50]:
Yeah. I like that. But I’m I’m honestly, I’m still back on watching a heron not move for half an hour and how I can’t imagine most people would have the patience to sit there and wait for that half hour to see what happened next. And I find that really pretty sad that most of us wouldn’t wouldn’t have the curiosity to sit there and watch for that long. And and I’m I’m sad about that and amazed that you did at the same time, and I’m amazed that you’re that I’m sad that

Wendi Gordon [00:59:22]:
Yeah. And it’s ironic because I am one of the most impatient people in the world. I’m the type of person that will, like, move from one grocery line to the next one if this one’s taking too long. Or if I see the lines too long at a restaurant, I’ll be never mind. I’m I’m not willing to wait that long for a table. But when I’m in nature, I mean, I’m just so enchanted and in awe that, like, I can’t take my eyes away. I wanna see what happens next. It’s just so cool to watch.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:49]:
I think more of us need to spend that kind of time. It would be so incredibly good for us, and I count myself in that number. It would be so incredibly good for us. Yeah.

Wendi Gordon [01:00:05]:
Yeah. It it’s related to people who talk about, you know, a digital detox periodically because, yeah, we’re we’re we’re so used to we have to have our minds occupied somehow. We don’t want to just sit and reflect and think because, you know, there’s distressing things that come to mind, and we wanna avoid. Right? So, yeah, I mean, it’s just second nature now, and it always actually saddens me when I am walking at the park to see so many people having cell phone conversations as they walk or just looking down at their phone, you know, scrolling Yeah. And just oblivious to the the

Nancy Norbeck [01:00:40]:
people around them. Admit that I have been that person too. Though there are times when I say to myself, no. It’s staying in my pocket. And I’m not listening to anything. I’m just gonna walk and look and listen to what’s already here. But it takes effort, and that is what I find most disturbing. You know? Twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have taken that much effort.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:04]:
And now it it really, really does. We are so conditioned to be looking at that stupid thing in our pocket all the time.

Wendi Gordon [01:01:13]:
Yeah. Yep. And feeling and I do it too. Feeling like, okay. If if I get a text message, I have to immediately read it and respond. Or, you know, I don’t check emails, like, nonstop. But when I do, it’s like, yeah. Okay.

Wendi Gordon [01:01:29]:
This one that really isn’t urgent or some of them I wouldn’t even need to respond to at all, but it, like, catches my curiosity and leads me down a rabbit hole. And I read the article and I wanna respond or whatever. Yeah. It’s very hard to, just allow myself to be still and not have something that my for my brain to focus on.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:50]:
Yeah. I think we we would all benefit from regaining it even if it’s just for five minutes and not thirty minutes.

Wendi Gordon [01:01:59]:
Yeah. Yes.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:01]:
Well, maybe maybe that’s, an assignment we could all take on and see if we can get get five minutes of stillness back in our lives. Maybe if maybe if we just start doing it once a week and see if we can up it from there. Yeah. Well

Wendi Gordon [01:02:20]:
Yeah. Stillness is very hard for me when I’m not in nature at home. No. I like meditation, for instance. I know all about the benefits of it, but every time I’ve tried it, I can’t even do it for, like, five minutes without my brain being totally off in another place and getting, like like, uncomfortable with the silence. And Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:41]:
Maybe maybe the fact that we Wendi so little time in nature is part of it. Yeah. Mhmm. Well, you’ve given us a lot to think about today, Wendi.

Wendi Gordon [01:02:53]:
Thank you. It’s been wonderful to talk about all this stuff. I’m glad

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:56]:
that we made the time to talk today. Thank you so much.

Wendi Gordon [01:03:00]:
Thank you.

Nancy Norbeck [01:03:02]:
That’s this week’s show. Thanks so much to Wendi Gordon and to you. I hope you’ll leave a review for this episode. There’s a link in your podcast app, and it is super easy and really helps me find new listeners. If you enjoyed our conversation, please share it with a friend. Thanks so much. If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at The Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners.

Nancy Norbeck [01:03:37]:
The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.