Love & Belonging
The ways we give, receive, lose, repair, and carry love.
These conversations explore love in all its complexity — romantic, parental, communal, and self-love. Guests reflect on the ways love has broken them open, remade them, sustained them, or called them to greater courage. This is where the stories live that remind us love is both the wound and the salve.
Justin Wren is a big man—and not just in stature. When you meet him in person, he takes up space. With his professional athlete’s frame and long blond hair, you can’t miss him. He has presence.
In his book Fight for the Forgotten, Justin writes unflinchingly about the intense bullying that shaped his childhood—a pain that sparked the fire that carried him into the world of professional MMA, where he found money, recognition, and a sense of belonging. But along his climb to becoming a champion, he fell into addiction, spiraled into despair, and attempted suicide.
Somehow, in the haze of that turmoil, a vision—a single Bible verse from Isaiah—became the thread that pulled him toward Africa, toward purpose, and toward the people he felt called to serve: the forgotten ones. People living in modern-day slavery. People forced to drink water that, as Justin says, we would hesitate to give our dogs.
What happened next became a symbiotic story of restoration. Justin, who never had a champion fighting for him as a child, has become a dragon slayer for communities who need protection, dignity, and a friend in their midst. And as he brings them life-sustaining clean water, they give him something just as powerful: acceptance, belonging, and a reshaped sense of family.
In many ways, they are fighting for each other.
Attica Locke’s newest novel Guide Me Home is the final installment in the trilogy of books that have followed the life and career of our hero Darren Mathews. A black Texas Ranger, whose world is defined by a strong family tradition, life off Highway 59, and a mother who has sold him out to his enemies. With this story of unexpected turns, surprising unholy alliances, and a race to find a missing black girl who may already be dead, Attica shines a light on the mysteries and shrouded cloak and dagger of motherhood. With the waning days of the Trump administration as its backdrop, Attica excavates where the secrets lie, what stories have been told and left untold, and asks a profound question – do our mothers deserve grace and maybe love even in the fractures of the unknown? As Attica herself says, this is a story that she could only have written now because of where she is in her own life today. In the in between place. Sending her own daughter off to college this year and all the emotions that come with this process. Also, having a deeper understanding and grace for her own mom – once seen through a glass darkly, now known. Attica’s final destination is suggested in the dedication of the book. For every mother whose child knows only half the story.
In his book and forthcoming documentary Trespass: Portraits of Unhoused Life, Love and Understanding, artist, photographer and author Kim Watson gives us an up close and intimate view of what life is like for the homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles. The stories are sometimes brutal. People are not always rescued from their bleak circumstances. But with his stunning photography and precise storytelling, Kim helps us see the full humanity of people we often want to turn away from on the streets of our cities. As Kim says “Art is beautiful, even when it depicts ugliness and strife. And one of the things about doing the book, I wanted it to be beautiful because I wanted you to see the beauty in the art. Because that leads you to the beauty in the person and that’s really what I was striving for.”
Kristen McGuiness is a successful author of books such as her memoir 51/50: The Magical Adventures of the Single Life and her debut novel, Live Through This. She has also founded her own publishing company called Rise Books where her mission is to publish what she describes as “radical works of inspiration.” Kristen is also the daughter of Dan McGuiness – one of the largest and most consequential marijuana smugglers of the 1970s and 1980s. She describes him as “one of the architects of the modern drug trade,” in Rolling Stone article Learjet’s Mistresses and Bales of Weed: My Dad’s Life as a Drug Kingpin. There exists a hard truth that comes through in our conversation and in her writings of what it was like to love her dad so much, even as he loved equally, if not more, the rush he got from being addicted to crime - "the juice" as she describe it. Her views of her life and who Dan McGuniess was are both heartbreaking and provocative; there is not the neat and easy good guy/bad guy trope that we usually expect from this type of story. Mostly, we find ourselves at the tip of the needle, dancing on a point that pricks our feet while we stay as upright as we can, clinging to dear life.
Travis Suit did the impossible. He swam from Bimini to South Florida. He crossed a Blue Desert to raise money for his daughter. As he says with tears lovingly filling his eyes, “I can’t help but see how beautiful adversity can be for transforming the perception of life into just a moment-by-moment miracle. I never knew the greatest gift in my life was going to be my daughter and this disease.” His daughter’s name is Piper. Her disease is Cystic Fibrosis. Which has transformed her life and his. Travis started a nonprofit called Pipers Angel’s Foundation that is helping Piper and the thousands of other people like her, fight this disease that leaves those who suffer with it, fighting to simply breathe. How does he view this adversity that walked unwanted into his family’s life? Travis says,
“Adversity is the starting line for courage.”
“Courage becomes the fuel for inspiration in our life.”
“And from there, Inspiration can really open the door to devotion.” Devotion to Piper. The reason he swam across the Blue Desert.
This fall, Zelda Adams entered one of the top universities in the world – Columbia University. Like all the other freshmen in her class there are pictures of her parents dropping her off at the University and their tearful goodbyes. Unlike the other freshmen in her class, in the years of her life preceding Columbia, Zelda traveled around America for a decade in a RV with her mom, dad and sister shooting movies. Award winning horror movies that have become cult classics and caught the attention of the New York Times and Vogue, Rotten Tomatoes, and Shudder Films. Hellbender, The Deeper You Dig, and Halfway to Zen to name a few. And in between all of that, she has managed to make a career for herself modeling for some of the top brands in the world – Theory, Marc Jacobs, and Gucci among other great fashion houses. And create a #makeitvogue video on TikTok for Vogue. But what excites Zelda today about her new life at Columbia? She will tell you it’s the unknown story that is being written. As she says, the real story is where she will be in 20 years. It could be a whole new life for her.
With her work today, as the Founder and CEO of Violets Are Blue, Cynthia herself has become a flashlight for thousands of women battling for their lives. She eloquently and passionately calls for more education, more technology, more treatments and a cure so that Stage 4 women can stay alive for more than five to 10 years. As she reminds us with almost startling candor, “There is no Stage 5. Stage 4 is it.” The time for action is now.
Josh’s journey reminds us of what happens when you stop running and start facing the pain of your life. When you find the capacity within your heart to forgive yourself and those who have caused you great disappointments. In a time when religion and commitment to following any religious doctrine can be used as a tool to divide us, Josh uses his pulpit to call upon us, the Church and the world to start a love revival. To love all people. To love all people abundantly.
Delia McLinden and her family own Farmhouse Fresh, one of the most successful product brands in the global spa industry. Built into the mission of the company is their living, breathing passion for farm animal rescue.
Enter Cassandra Worthy. She is a global keynote speaker, author and consultant who is the CEO and optimistic mind behind Change Enthusiasm. Her three-step method of “Signal. Opportunity. Choice.” provides a blueprint for organizations in transition as they help their employees accept inevitable changes by embracing what she calls the growth mindset. What distinguishes Cassandra’s approach is that a significant part of her pedagogy is based upon the acknowledgement and leveraging of the employees’ emotions in this change process.
Sometimes you have to walk through doors that open for you. It sounds simple enough, but as Keiko Anderson points out, sometimes a closed door can be more comforting than an opened door. At least with a closed door you know what it is. An opened door means that you have to take the risk and step across the threshold into the unknown. How does Keiko recommend you proceed when standing on the precipice of the mysterious and the unfamiliar? Have faith and know that sometimes you have to make a decision and not back down.
Dennis’ journey to meeting his son is a lesson for us all that we have to construct new futures for ourselves when our plans don’t work out as we have dreamed. In his calming and assuring manner, Dennis encourages us to keep knocking on the doors believing that the answers we are looking for will soon appear. His is the perfect story to contemplate as we prepare for Thanksgiving. You can also see his journey and update on fatherhood on ABC’s The Parent Test.