Episode 90: Susan Vogt on “Love Your Enemy”

Simple Living Works! Podcast

SHOW NOTES

To LISTEN, click the player at the top or the bottom of this page, or visit the Episode Index.  SUBSCRIBE for free through iTunesStitcher.com or your favorite podcast service.

squareportrait

Episode 90

In her Lenten disciple “love your enemy,” author, blogger, speaker, coach Susan Vogt listens to conservatives to find out why they vote for regressive government.

Read her extended blog on her experiment. With her permision, I have included below her personal responses which she left out of her blog.

Susan’s Site: marriage, parenting, spirituality, leadership, workshops, books, about Susan

AWARD WINNING AUTHOR

  • Blessed by Less: Clearing Your Life of Clutter by Living Lightly
  • Parenting Your Adult Child
  • Money in the Kingdom of God
  • Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference
  • Kids Creating Circles of Peace, co-author, Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ)
  • Just Family Nights

ENGAGING SPEAKER

Susan has spoken to groups across the U.S.A. as well as in Japan, Kenya, South Korea, India, the Philippines, and Guam. She leads interactive workshops that leave audiences with practical ideas for a more meaningful and satisfying life.
Trivia note: Susan gave away one thing a day for a year and ate on $4.50/day for six weeks.

ACKNOWLEDGED FAMILY AND MINISTRY LEADER

  • Leadership team for the Marianist Lay Network of North America (MLNNA) (2005-present)
  • Representative for Lay Marianists of N. America, Asia, Australia, and Ireland (2009-present)

Champion of Simple Living: speaker, author, blogger Susan Vogt.

Testimonials/Feedback/Comments/Response to all SLW! media

References to blogs: Who’s Risen from the Dead, Anyway? — Lent/Easter Resources; Susan’s contributions 

Susan’s Responses

WHY TRUMP?: Although this wasn’t a scientific study, the primary reasons most people gave are below. Since I didn’t want this to be a debate, the responses I would have liked to make (but didn’t) are in italics.

  1. CHANGE – Washington is corrupt. Congress can’t get anything done. (Our government also gets a lot right, like the EPA protecting our environment.)
  2. Trump is not a career politician. – This is related to #1 because many felt the reason Congress can’t get anything done was that they were beholden to lobbyists with money to get re-elected.
  3. Over-regulation – Many were entrepreneurs and government regulation made it harder for them to do business. (Regulation also protects us from dishonest or harmful practices.)
  4. Abortion – “I didn’t vote for Trump, I voted for the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v Wade.” (The law does not force anyone to get an abortion. Better solutions are prevention, adoption, and/or helping women with societal support to raise a child after birth.)
  5. Big government keeps people lazy. – “Welfare enables folks to just sit around on the couch, watch TV, and drink beer.” (I was once a welfare worker. It’s not this simple. Supporting strong family life, education, mental health services, etc. are the building blocks of a strong society. Some will always fall through the cracks. Are we there to give them a leg up or just to judge.)
  6. Why not! All had serious reservations about Trump as a person, but they overlooked his nasty personal life because:
    *He was a successful businessman who would take action. (He also had some bankruptcies.)
    *He was an outsider who could shake things up (“drain the swamp”) (Many of his appointments have little experience for their job and often have ties to a different exclusive swamp.)
    *Our system’s checks and balances would rein him in. (With both houses of Congress supporting him, extremely conservative appointments, and use of executive orders, where are the checks and balances?) 

MENTIONS in This Episode

Earlier Episodes

Ep. 89 :: Northwest Earth Institute 

Northwest Earth Institute is a non-profit organization that inspires people to take responsibility for Earth.

NWEI was founded in 1993 with a simple objective: to give people a framework to talk about our relationship with the planet and to share in discovering new ways to live, work, create and consume.

For over 20 years, NWEI has helped make change more possible, more social, and yes, more fun by helping people connect with their communities and take action, together.

A Different Way: Living Simply in a Complex World, the newest book from NWEI, offers us a chance to reconnect with what matters most, explore practical ways to simplify our lives, and reduce our impact.

Conversation with Lacy Cagle, NWEI Dir. of Learning

Mentions in This Episode

 

Ep. 88 :: Nancy Pearlman, Executive Director of Educational Communications, is a dedicated educator, anthropologist, environmentalist, and documentary producer who has devoted her life to protecting the environment, helping society, and improving the quality of our colleges.

Educational Communications

Core Projects – www.ecoprojects.org

Additional Projects: Campus Greening // Eco-View // Social Justice and the Arts // Ecological Action Checklist (English and Spanish)

# # #

Cecile AndrewsEpisode 87

Champion of Simplicity Circles and Community Conversation Working with Millennials and Minimalists through local groups to Build Resistance to regressive governments.

A community educator, Cecile is active in the transition movement in the United States. Cecile and her husband are founders of Seattle’s Phinney Ecovillage, a neighborhood-based sustainable community, which has morphed into Sustainable Greenwood-Phinney.

Cecile’s Champion of Simple Living PROFILE

She’s the author of. . .

Cecile’s site is CecileAndrews.com (NOT SimplicityCircles.com)

Individual Episode Index.

SLW! Podcast Ep. 15 with Cecile — See the Show Notes of #15 for more interesting links.

Mentions in This Episode

# # #

John de Graaf‘s Champion of Simple Living PROFILE

John’s recent articles:

PODCASTS – See these episodes for many interesting links.
# # #

Episode one of the two-part series is based on Walter Brueggemann‘s six theses about money & possessions throughout the Bible; episode two is his brief survey of the theme of money and possessions in the Bible.

Essential Reading! — Contents, Series Foreword, Foreword (Richard Horsely), Preface, Introduction (Chapter One) — available free online.

Brueggemann Bio

* * *

The Simpler Living Daily NUDGE

* * *
In addition to this podcast and its show notes, we post a weekly SLW! blog. We hope you’ll read and subscribe. The BLOG is the companion to our twice-a-month podcast. The content is different, though the subject is the same. Click on blog at the top of the show notes of any episode. Blog INDEX

Recent Responses to All SLW! Media

Welcome to the other podcast I co-host/produce, The Common Good Podcast.

SLW! Recommends Literacy Service

This service contains books (paper, eBooks, audio), video (DVD, internet), audio (CD, MP3), blogs, podcasts, sites. These are somewhat current resources. For classic resources, visit Study/Activity/Action Guides. For more ideas, go to Getting Started. Also see Champions of Simple Living and other worthwhile Links.

Simpler Living Alternative Daily Calendar –  MARCH

Tony & Shane Uncut

The complete 3-1/2 hour straight talk between Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne about simple living and global justice — episodes 20-27.

Champions of Simple Living Today

Vicki Robin, Cecile Andrews, John de Graaf, Duane Elgin and more!

Simple Living blog/podcast/site preview service

Treasury of Celebrations: Create Celebrations That Reflect Your Values and Don’t Cost the Earth, the last edition of the classic series Alternate Celebrations Catalogs.

Simple Living 101: Tools for Activists (shy or bold) | Share the Joy of a Simpler Lifestyle Through Speeches, Workshops, Events, Study/Action Groups, Simplicity Circles and Social Media + BONUS: Social Media Supplement // Self-Starters Needed! // Free coaching for groups on the internet

Themes/Seasons: Alternatives’ Collections IndexAdvent/Christmas/Epiphany | Lent/Easter | Other Seasons | Anytime/Non-Seasonal | Music | Art | Audio | Video | Spanish | Living More with Less

Spirit of Simplicity: Quotes and Art for Simpler Living and Global Justice (Foreword by Cecile Andrews) | Introduction | How to Use This Collection | QUOTES | ART | En Español (all)

10 Tips for a Simpler, More Meaningful Celebrations | SPANISH: 10 puntas

Jubilee Economics / The OneEarth Project colleague Lee Van Ham’s book Blinded by Progress: Breaking Out of the Illusion That Holds Us. Also, hear The Common Good Podcast, which I co-host and produce. || Three minute film: Ecology and Economics—Colleagues, Not Rivals || Lee’s Slide Show

Share your thoughts on this podcast and this episode. Email SimpleLivingWorks@yahoo.com, leave a message on our Facebook page or on the SLW! blog.

Like SLW! on Facebook. | Follow us on Twitter. | Read & subscribe to the SLW! blog. |  Follow us on Pinterest.

To LISTEN, click the player at the top or the bottom of this page. To SUBSCRIBE to email notices, click Comments below, then check  

SUBSCRIBE for free through iTunesStitcher.com or your favorite podcast service. Please rate us in iTunes and leave a review. Send us your email address to receive the free monthly SLW! eNews. Remember to like us on Facebook. Urge your friends to do the same.

Episode Index

Peace, Gerald “Jerry” Iversen, Chief SLW! Activist

  • To learn more about SLW! – our MISSION, for example — listen to episodes #1 and 2. We produce a half-hour podcast twice a month, to educate and inspire you, your family and your congregation or group. We blog twice a week as SLW! Nudge and SLW! Digest.
  • Living More with Less: the 5 Life Standards of Voluntary Simplicity
  • IMAGE: NWEI.org
  • For hard copies of Alternatives’ resources at nominal cost, contact ELCA Archives, 321 Bonnie Lane, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 * (847) 690-9410 * archives@elca.orgClick ABOUT for Music and Cover Art Credits.We do not solicit or accept donations, nor do we sell anything. All our resources and services are free of charge. We’re an all-volunteer organization. Instead, we urge Alternative Giving. Give away 25% of what you spent last year on all celebrations – Christmas, birthdays, etc. — to local, national and international causes.Copyright: Creative Commons non-commercial attribution share-alike license.*Treasury of Celebrations: published by Northstone, a division of Wood Lake Publications, BC, Canada, best known for its Seasons of the Spirit curriculum.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>