What is the Glory and the Grind Podcast?

Welcome to the Glory and the Grind Podcast! 

The show where we explore the beauty and the struggle of living out your Catholic faith. We're your host, Carly Flynn and Raleigh Poche.

We’re two friends finding grace in the grind of motherhood and ministry – while dodging nerf darts, packing snacks, and trying to understand youth culture without killing our remaining brain cells. 

We take your questions from life in the grind and look for the glory woven into your story. So—let’s dive into some moments where holiness and hot messes meet.

Have a “grind” you want us to discuss in future episodes?

Send us a DM on Instagram @thegloryandthegrind or email us at thegloryandthegrindpod@gmail.com

Have a “grind” you want us to discuss in future episodes? Send us an email or DM on social media! 

EMAIL: thegloryandthegrindpod@gmail.com
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@TheGloryandtheGrindPodcast
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegloryandthegrind/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588713602700

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Glory and the Grind, the podcast where we explore the beauties and struggles of living out our Catholic faith. I'm your host, Carly Flynn.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I'm also here. Hi, Raleigh Poche. We're just two friends finding grace in the grind of motherhood and ministry while dodging nerf darts, packing snacks, and trying to understand youth culture while not killing our remaining brain cells. We take your questions from Life in the Grind and look for the glory woven into your story. So let's dive into some moments where holiness and hot messes meet. So this is our pre-first episode where we just basically introduce ourselves, tell you all a little bit about who we are and what we hope for this podcast, and hopefully have you learn a little bit about our hearts as they are the heart of Christ and how we try to bring Christ to others. So when we start each episode, we're gonna start it off with something that everyone hates from ages fourth grade all the way up to teachers in a faculty meeting, icebreakers. Icebreakers! And sometimes, oh, that's what I do. I do, and my kids do it now too.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I want it to be as cool as you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Well, one day you keep trying and eat all your Wheaties, and you might be. Icebreakers. Sometimes we will know what the icebreaker is ahead of time. This is one of those beautiful times when we don't know what each other's icebreaker is. So we're gonna do a little game of would you rather? Carly, give us our first would you rather icebreaker.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

All right, Raleigh, would you rather travel to the past or travel to the future? It's an oldie but a goodie. You get to learn a lot about people, and I'm very interested to hear. You going forward, you're going backwards?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

I'm going backwards. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Where backwards? Uh, probably to high school to retake the ACT. That's hilarious. That is so not, and I would never subject myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

I would do so much better now. I feel like I would do so much better on the ACT now if I took it now. And like, I don't want to know what's in the future because I don't want to like, you know, live my life knowing what's coming. I just want to kind of take it as it comes. But I would go back in the future and redo. You decided in the future. I would go, oh, maybe I just need to watch that movie. I would go back to the past to retake the ACT, and that is very nerdy.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

But I would never have guessed that that's what you were gonna say. I would also go back to the past, but not to do anything practical. I would go to like the further past to go to like cool concerts or something. Like I would just want to go enjoy myself. I don't want to do anything practical. So I would just go some to some cool past event and sit in the back and enjoy being present to it, and then I would return. I would not try to be consequential in any way.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Good for you. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Good for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I would I would try to steal more money so I can get money for college, but that's good. All right, Carly Flynn. Would you rather attend a mass with Saint Joan Paul, Saint John Paul II as a celebrant or get spiritual direction from Mother Teresa? That is so hard.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

I think I would rather attend the mass because I feel like getting spiritual direction from Mother Teresa would be super intimidating. And I would sweat a lot. So I'm going to say, I'm gonna say, if I could go to Mass, then I could just like cry and appreciate and be glad and not um yeah, not turn into a sweat puddle. That's my answer.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I agree. I would choose JP2 Mass because I can just read one of her books. Like I can read a book. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And her books by themselves make me sweat.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So right. So like, yes, 100% going to the mass with that Polish accent and just crying.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I would love it. All right. So we are gonna dive in to the next part of our episode where we actually just tell you a little bit about ourselves. You've gotten a taste already. Um, but we want you to know who you're listening to. We say in our other episodes that we are highly fallible and that we are, of course, hoping that we will bring something valuable to your day that might help you in your spiritual journey. However, take everything that we say with a grain of salt, hold it up against the church, church scripture, and tradition. I will start by saying that I have unofficial training as a catechist and as a minister. I have been brought into this world largely by the Lord and largely by enthusiasm, which has been a great learning experience for me. I got a degree in creative writing and later a second degree in creative writing, and later a teaching certificate and an educational leadership certificate, um, largely surrounding the idea that I wanted to be able to tell stories, which later became I wanted to tell the story of Christ and how people relate their personal stories to the story of Christ, which became teaching in a Catholic school and leading a Catholic school, which has been a great blessing. Um, my vocation is to marriage, and I have a husband who is also a teacher who originally was not a teacher. We kind of found each other along the way that way. He got an MBA, and then I joke with him all the time that he shouldn't have done anything that he's done. He was born to be a sports announcer. That's it. I could see that. Yeah, he watches sports and says words, and then the announcers say exactly what he said 20 seconds after he said it. Every single day it happens to us. So he missed his calling, and we just love him through that. But he's a great teacher, and um, I'm excited to see uh how he changes the lives of young people every day. Finally, random fact about me. I can lick my elbow, and I don't know how I discovered this about myself, but that's that's me in a nutshell. And I'm gonna turn it over to our friend Rolly.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

No, I'm just joking. But seriously, every time she tells people that, they like look at their elbow and they like start to go for it. I'm like, don't you do it, don't you do it?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

All right, Raleigh. Tell the people about you.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So, first I want to point out something about Carly and I because I think it's it's important to get to our origin. So Carly and I first met in 2007, 2008, maybe, in her sophomore, my freshman biology class. She was older than I was. I was just like a younger, I don't even know. I just was like such a little brat, but we were not friends. It's not that we didn't like each other, but like there was just kind of this unspoken rule that if you were older than someone, you didn't like have to acknowledge the presence of someone younger. And I was so you were a cheerleader. I was, and I was a dance teamer. I was a tall, blonde cheerleader and had all of the stereotypes that came with that, and I was a little brunette dancer girl who just hung the moon in all the teachers' eyes. And I just was not a biology, no, same. And we had like actually probably the best biology teacher in the state of Louisiana, but still we're same. And we reconnected, I think. After I went back to teach, we we taught at the same school. We reconnected because we were both young teachers and started to do retreats together and do more projects together at school. And before you know it, we are here today starting a podcast together, which is just a long time coming, but I'm happy we finally pulled the trigger on it. We're making it happen.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So we're gonna thank the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

We're gonna thank the little Lord for keeping us together because it's been a minute since we've worked together. And I'll tell you all a little bit about that um as I introduce myself. So my name is Raleigh. I have grown up in Southern Louisiana my whole life, and I've kind of just stayed here. I went to high school, elementary school, I went to college about an hour away. So this is kind of my home base. Um, by degree, I am an English and theology educator. I have a degree in English education from Nickel State University, Go Colonels, and a graduate certificate from John Paul II University in Escadito, California, which basically means I just did enough undergraduate work and graduate work in theology to be able to teach high school theology. So I think that's like 28, 24 credit hours. Good for you. I could have gone for the master's, but like I just I don't know. If I don't have to, I know I'm not going to. And like I I learned a lot and I was good with that. So when I tell people have an undergraduate certificate, it just sounds weird, but I'm good with it. I'm okay with it. I think you're perfect just as you are. Yeah, I'm half a master's. I'm a mah, and I'm good with it. I um I am a ma. I'm a mom of three really, really fun kids aging two. I'm so sorry. I just realized I didn't tell them that I have kids.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

You left out your left them out. I said that I was married to a man who should have been a sports announcer and then I moved on. I have three children and they're fabulous. I love them so much, and that's all. I just wanted to say that in case they ever hear this and go, she forgot about us. She forgot about us. They're the best children in the world, and I love them more than life itself. And that is my plug. All right, Raleigh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I can attest to that. That's true. She does love her children and rarely forgets about them.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Forget about them.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Anyways, my husband, um, he would not have been a good sports announcer. He's an engineer, very left-brained oriented, which is a very good balance because I am the opposite. So we get a really good balance of that in our family. I started teaching theology um to sophomores when I first started teaching, and I've taught every grade of theology, high school religion, except for juniors. True. But my favorite thing to teach is scripture and theology of the body. It's just so wonderful to open up their eyes to the point of love and how God loves us and how we're supposed to reflect that in our own lives. So I kind of missed that part of teaching. Um, I say that because after my third child was born in 2023, I decided to transition to being a stay-at-home mom full-time. Um, and then after a year of being a stay-at-home mom full-time, I started to um open up a balloon business where I do like balloon arches and balloon decorating. It's called Three Buffoons Balloons, named after my three children. And like side note, I think that name is ridiculous, but I can't change it because it is already on all of my marketing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

I think it's fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And I think he says he says, Don't change it.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

No, don't change it because you know, like I just had to make a plug so that my kids will know that I know that they exist. Hey, your kids know that you know that they exist.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah. Everywhere I go, people know I have three buffoons.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

And that's wonderful. And they are they're such a little celebrities, you know. They just get to follow you around. And when when you bring them along to set up your balloons, they're like the buffoons are here.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

It's that is that is a big that is a big thing. Some people will ask, like, oh, what are you bringing? No, I'm not bringing my kids, they're insane. I can't bring them to that. But sometimes they do get to come. Finally, a random fact about me. My name is Raleigh, R-A-L-E-I-G-H, like the capital of North Carolina. Um, also Sir Walter. But I've had people in my life that have known me for over 30 years that still call me Riley or Rayleigh, and I just don't care enough to can can to correct them.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

I will correct them sometimes for you. Like when you've walked away, I'll be like, hey, her name is Raleigh. And Raleigh. I think they think I'm kidding sometimes. Like people have laughed in my face before when I say that. And I'm like, no, but really. Well, people don't know how to spell Carly.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Well, that's because there's all these varieties now.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And they're they're wrong.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

ICarly has proven that your name is spelled. The definitive R L Y.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

It is the way, right? So, like, we're gonna talk a lot in this show about things that are the way, and there is a way to spell my name. That is secondary to our primary mission of educating you on ways that you might be able to grow in your spiritual life. And the way we're gonna do that is take listener questions, listener concerns, and explore them, do some research and get back to you with what are our takes on these topics as people who are trying to grow in holiness and kind of living in the mess with you. What does church tradition and church official teaching share with us? How can we break that open? And um, hopefully getting into the scriptures and getting into God's promises of, hey, you're gonna mess it up a little bit. It's okay, right? We I've been listening a lot to um the story of a soul. St. Therese says over and over again how little and humble. And first few chapters that I've been and diving into, she's just listing all the ways that she's incapable and listing all the ways that she's like sensitive and small and weak and unsure and all the ways she gets it wrong. Um, but that she just continuously trusts in an Almighty God who loves her abundantly and who will bless her with everything she needs to become a great saint. Uh, she already had that famous quote from the story um in the one of the chapters that I read. And she said, I have great aspirations that I cannot accomplish on my own, but I know that if I give them over to God, he has given me these aspirations and he will help me to accomplish them. And it will be his merits that win me the rewards that I seek and not my own. So that's what we hope to help everyone, including ourselves, to reach for is this ultimate union with Christ, where he is transforming us daily and the capacity for transformation will grow as we join together on this mission. Um, so our very first episode is going to be about balance and that exact idea that we had a listener who reached out and said, I want to know more about entering into the spiritual life with this pursuit of finding balance and looking at all of my life's responsibilities and all of my life's activity and figuring out can a spiritual life be balanced? What would that even look like? Um, so we're gonna unpack that a lot more in the first episode. We invite you to click over to that episode to learn more. Um, and Raleigh, any words to the good people before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

If you haven't already, please go and check out our social media. We're on Instagram, we're on YouTube, share us with your friends, and please pray for us as we get into this endeavor because we are always praying for you and for those who choose to listen to our ramblings. Um, but also please pray for us because we always need it. We need to be one body, and we love that support. So please pray for us.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Absolutely. And so, thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you in the next episode. Bye guys, see y'all.