E10“Pull Up a Chair, Let’s Chat: Q&A & What Do You Think?

Pull up a chair for Episode 10 of Spiritual Hot Sauce. Chris responds to listener messages — including stories from an atheist and a veteran with PTSD — explains the “Scars That Speak” concept from the Five Life‑Cycle framework, and answers questions about faith vs. religion. He also previews upcoming guests and explains how to connect with the show. Thank you for a successful launch — send your questions (include contact info) and keep the conversation going.

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Episode 10 of “Spiritual Hot Sauce” by Chris Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.  
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Welcome. I'm Chris Jones. This is where believers and skeptics alike are invited to embark on a journey of faith, philosophy, and life from a different perspective. Whether we are joined by an insightful guest or we just jump into the deep end, this exploration promises to challenge us all. Are we getting it right? This is Spiritual Hot Sauce. Hey guys, this is our 10th episode. Can you believe that? I mean, I've spent more than two years of pushing and fighting and trying to get to this point where I'm sitting down and talking to you. So this is a really nice moment for me. We've had nine very dense, rich episodes. I mean, just packed full of philosophy and psychology and spirituality, these complex ideas of trying to make them digestible. And I feel like we've done that. And I know they can be a little fatiguing after this heavy outpouring. And now I just want to sit and chat. I think we need this. Let's sit and talk. So now I just want to answer some questions. I got some questions for you about the evolution of the show, talk about what's coming up, talking about how we can connect other than just here on the podcast. And yeah, that's what I want to get into. And I just want to tell you thank you for pulling up a chair. Thank you for the comments. Thank you for the five stars. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. So, I mean, I this has been more than two years in the making of launching this podcast. And it's not that I wanted a podcast. It was like, you know what, I want to be a podcast host. That's not at all what I wanted to do or what the goal was, not that I don't want to do it. But it just kind of organically grew. I publicly speak. I come from a background of leadership. And so this is just kind of a natural flow for me. But there was no voice out there talking about the things I'm talking about that I knew of. So two years ago, I really wanted to start a podcast and give voice to this because I feel like it's important. I feel like this message is bigger than the presenter. That's I feel like it's important. This is not a vehicle to a means. This vehicle is to present a message. That's what it's about. So thank you for pulling up a chair and helping with this. So let's get into this. Let's talk about what you've had to say. Lonnie Fusion says, spot on, 100% agree. Jesus did not come to found a religion. He also says, this is great wisdom, Chris. I'm listening to these episodes multiple times. Lonnie, thank you so much for being a part of this. Truly appreciate it. Alicia says, This is just so good. If I wrote all my thoughts, I'd be writing a novel. I love all your content. Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. Cynthia says about episode six, The Groundhog, The Sunset, and Clarity, finding your cadence and world full of distractions. Great message. Thank you for sharing this. It makes me reflect and evaluate how much I need to slow down and be more present in my life and with the people I love. That statement in itself is wise. Thank you, Cynthia. And Cole Evelyn says, brilliant. And Chris Schultz said about episode two, suffering and things we cannot control. Love this topic in perspective. I found it very thought-provoking. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. Suzanne wrote, love this podcast. Can't wait to hear more. And Susan says, I really like what you have shared so far. It's relatable, and you share great analogies. Great podcast. Thank you, Susan. Thank you guys for those comments. And I have a couple that are not public, but I want to share them because I think they speak to what I'm trying to achieve here. The first one came from Scott. Now, Scott's an atheist who loves the podcast, and he said episode four was particularly challenging for him. And if you don't know what episode four was, it was defining good, how we've defined good wrong from the beginning. And there's a part where we talk about that atheist and theist both typically make the mistake against the scripture of how Jesus taught good, that we define good based on social construct. That's part of the poison in humanity. And he found this very challenging because I was superimposing ideas onto atheism. And he said he immediately wanted to thumbs down the episode, get up from the table and walk away and just be done. He said, But I I didn't. He said, I just I thought about it for a minute. And I said, Well, wait a second, this is challenging to hear, but is it true? And he said, the more I thought about it, I realized he's right. This is true. And he said, I still didn't like it. It was still challenging to listen to, but I finished it. But there was value in it. And he says, because of that, I continue to listen to spiritual hot sauce. And I just want to applaud Scott because it is so easy to be a Kool-Aid dispenser of whatever ideology of religion that you hold to, that you just spout what you've been taught to think rather than challenging what you think and figuring out what you believe. See, Scott's in the process of figuring out what he believes rather than just what he's been taught to think. And I love that. I have another person who reached out to let me know. He likes the podcast. Now he's a person that's been in the military and he's seen a lot of action. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's followed him home, has caused some problems in his life. And he's been going through the post-traumatic growth process. Well, we talked about in episode two with the five life cycles. And he said the third episode, overcoming ourselves in adversity, he said, just hit. He said, when he heard about the mat and he heard about time being your most precious commodity and gift that we have, that he realized he was committing that sin. And it inspired him to get up and start moving and getting on with life. And I just want to say I applaud you, my friend. And we are here in support of you. Please keep us posted on how things are going as you move forward. And nothing but love and nothing but support from spiritual hot sauce. Thank you, man. We love you. All right. Now I got some questions from you that I want to answer. So, and I want to tell you this: I absolutely want to hear from you. I want to talk to you. I want to converse with you. I want to respond. If you've got questions or things you want to share, I want to hear them. There's a place on Spotify and Apple Podcast. When you go to description, it's at the bottom. It says we'd love to hear from you. It's like an underlined link. If you'll just click that, you can text me directly a message of whatever you want. But you need to realize I can't respond back and it's blind. I have no idea who you are. So please include your phone number, email address, because I want to be able to talk with you. I want to be able to reply to these questions, concerns, or comments or whatever. I want to be able to talk. And if you give me your email address, I'm not going to spam and blow you up. That's you'd be lucky if I'm supposed to be doing that. And because I won't, I'll forget. But, you know, some of you might want to know what's going on with the podcast. And that might be a great way to do it. I don't know. You know, send me a message and say, hey, put me on your email list. And I will. I'll try to, I won't try. I will send you a message and give you the dates of when I'm publicly speaking or going to be on another podcast, or, you know, I don't know, whatever that involves that you need to know about. So please send me a message. I want to talk. Let's talk. All right. So let me answer some questions that you've had. Okay, in episode two, suffering and things we can't control. This is where I introduced the concept of East and West of the compass. East is suffering in things we can't control that have purpose. And West is suffering in things we can't control that has no purpose. We just have to get through them. So in that, we talked about the five life cycles that Jesus presents in the resurrection story. The first part of that is the Garden of Gethsemane. The second part is the cross. The third part is the tomb. The fourth part is resurrection. And the fifth part is witnessing. And when I brought up the fifth part, I talked about our scars speaking in ways that our words can't. What does that mean? Okay. So think about one of the big storms you've gone through, one of the big traumatic ones that was identity changing. Well, we talk about in East, that things you can't control, the suffering you can't control, that has purpose. And that's what Jesus was talking about in the life cycle stages, that we can resurrect with a new identity in a better place. But I said that you're going to bear scars. And these scars will speak in ways your words can't, in the witnessing part. So let's say there's somebody that's going through a very similar storm that you went through. I can go to them and I can talk to them and I can be encouraging and be comforting and try to help. And for the most part, they're going to humor me when I try to give them advice. They probably appreciate the encouragement, the comfort, but how effective in helping, I it's probably minimal. However, you who bear those scars can go speak to them who have open wounds. In other words, they are currently going through this, and information that you give, little pieces of advice, now becomes life-transforming. I mean, it becomes the hope that helps them get out of the storm and get to a better situation, get to life. But it comes from your scars speaking in ways that your words can't. It witnesses on your behalf. It gives weight to your words. Now when you speak, they don't just hear words, they hear hope. That's what I mean when I say our scars speak in ways our words can't. That was a great question. Thank you. Okay, so I've got another question here, and this is from a pastor, and he says, or he asked, why aren't you helping people become better Christians? Well, I would say we probably need to agree on the definition of Christian. I don't think becoming more religious or more indoctrinated in your denomination is becoming more Christian. I would say that just simply means you're becoming more religious. And I think that we've Yeah, you know, I'm sorry I'm struggling for words here. I I think that part of what I'm doing is just trying to separate Jesus from the religion. You know, it's like I've said in the past, I don't think Jesus came here to start a religion. I think we did that. I again, I don't think he has a problem with that, as long as we are trying to move in discipleship of Christ, and that's not necessarily religion. So I think I'm just trying to help people see the beauty of the moon without judging it based on the fingers that point at it. That's a good way to say it and leave it. All right. Next question. Are you going to have guest? Yes, I am going to have guest. That's coming up, but part of this is I'm trying to get out the foundation of what I believe so you know what perspective I'm speaking from. But a big part of it is there's technical things that have to happen. There's equipment that you got to get. This all costs money. And, you know, this has been a labor of love. And I'm just trying to get it done. So I'm trying to build things and get them there. If you would like to give and be a part of this and help support, you can. If you want to reach out to me by, like I said before, in that place and say, hey, I want to give and support, how do I do it? I'll send you a link and you can send some money, and I will use that to help and support to get this stuff done quicker. But yeah, I've already got guests lined up. This is going to be awesome. I'm also going to be appearing on Raising the Wild Ones. They've asked me to be a guest on their show. That's upcoming. So part of this, what we're doing, is also discussing how do you want to do this? And this is my question for you. This is a good segue. Do you want me to every five or 10 episodes do what we're doing here? Or do you want to have a little bit of this at the beginning rather than me just jumping in? Because I know I just, here we go. I open up and I just slam into it, and then I just kind of ease out with something usually a little profound. Or would you rather me just have a conversation with you at the beginning like this and bring up-to-date stuff? Hey, this is where I'm, you know, I'm going to be on this podcast then and this, I'm doing this and this, I'll be speaking here and there. You know, would you rather have a little of that in the beginning? Or would you rather have that every five or ten episodes? We'll do a full episode of this or a combination. I don't know. So how would you like to see this go? I think I've covered everything. You know, I hope I've challenged everybody to figure out their compass we talked about, the north and south, north being your emotions, south being your discipline, east being suffering and things we can't control that have purpose, West suffering and things we can't control that have no purpose. And right in the center is our cardiac, our center, our essence of how we choose our will, of where we move into the compass, how we perceive it, and how we respond that helps us get to a better place. I would love to hear from you and how you're applying that and what you've discovered. Maybe you know something that others need to know that you've discovered. But guys, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And uh I think we're starting to figure out what this is about. I'll see you next time. Thank you. Thanks for joining me here on Spiritual Hot Sauce. I'd love to hear from you. So please reach out with questions, comments, and or concerns. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and review us. You can follow us on Facebook for updates and information. And if you enjoy the flavor of the sauce, then please share it with others. I would appreciate that. We'll see you next time.