If you think an old dog can’t learn new tricks—ooops, please excuse me for a moment while I adjust my flea collar—you’re wrong. Doggone it if I haven’t gotten myself into yet another situation where something I want to do is forcing me to learn things I never really wanted to learn.
I actually do like knowing how to do things; I just don’t always like learning how to do them. And if it involves using technology? Fuhgeddaboudit.
In spite of that, I am currently, of my own free will, learning how to record, produce and disseminate an audio podcast. For those who may not know what that is, an audio podcast is like a radio talk show, except it’s not on the radio. It is “broadcast,” or streamed, on internet music/podcast platforms like Apple, Google, Amazon Music, and Spotify, among others, and folks listen at their leisure on electronic devices like smartphones, tablets and computers.
This all started, as most of my adventures and misadventures do, with an idea that landed on my brain from out of nowhere and just wouldn’t shut up. I’m not saying I hear voices in my head, but ideas are kind of like voices and this one was especially persistent.
I couldn’t ignore the possibility, however remote, that it might actually be God prodding me to expand my horizons. I thought my horizons were already expanded quite enough, but since this idea seemed to be stuck to my brain with Gorilla Glue, I decided to give podcasting a try.
I wasn’t going solo, though. I wanted to recruit a friend, Luanne, to go down this rabbit hole with me. I knew we shared similar views on faith and politics, and that she was a very good Bible teacher and speaker, but I was pretty sure Luanne would think I was certifiably nuts if I asked her to join me on this adventure.
To my amazement, when I asked her, she immediately said yes. In fact, unbeknownst to me at the time, Luanne had recently been encouraged by friends to do this very thing—to start a podcast. It seemed a plan was coming together.
After a few months of brainstorming and preparation, “Unquenchable Hope,” our weekly, 30-minute podcast, is finally out there in cyberspace. We now have several episodes under our belt and available on all the platforms mentioned above, and we’re planning to keep going until God puts up a stop sign.
It turns out that talking is the easy part of podcasting. The bigger challenge has been learning how to use new devices and audio editing software. Ugh.
I can imagine conversations going on in my head amongst my weary brain cells: “Here we go again. Why does she keep doing this to us? Why can’t she try to learn to knit or play pickleball or something—anything—that doesn’t involve technology? She knows how tired this makes us.”
“Suck it up, brain cells, we’re doin’ this thing,” I command.
I’ve always appreciated what technology can do; I’ve just never liked learning to make it do what it can do. But, needs must, so here I am, dog-paddling around in the new waters of podcasting.
Why? Because Luanne and I feel like one thing people desperately need right now is hope. Hope that can’t be quenched by Covid craziness, political shenanigans, or anything else this world throws at us. The eternal hope that comes from and is found only in Jesus Christ. Unquenchable hope.
In the end, serving God is really pretty simple. Mary, the mother of Jesus, summed it up when she said this: “Whatever He says to you, do it.” (John 2:5)
Even if it feels like a very new trick and you’re a somewhat old dog.