September 8, 2022 • 20 mins
Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295
https://www.fscenter.org
Steve Spilde: Today, it is my pleasure to re-welcome to the podcast Shannon K. Evans, who joined us last year [when] we had a great visit. I’m excited to visit with her again. Shannon is an author, she is a presenter, she is a mother, she is a wife. She’s coming to the Franciscan Spirituality Center in October; we’ll talk about that later. We’re excited about that retreat. But mainly, I’m excited about another opportunity to visit with Shannon. Welcome.
Shannon Evans: Thank you. It’s nice to be back.
Steve: As I was preparing for this recording, I was reading your book, “Embracing Weakness,” which I love. I love the title. I love the content.
Shannon: You’re one of the few who loved the title. It’s not exactly an attractive title.
Steve: I think it’s the kind of book that once you continue to establish your reputation and your body of work, it will get revisited and probably reissued at some point in the future. I really do think it’s a profound [book]. Could you summarize the content of that book?
Shannon: It’s not a memoir, per se, but it has aspects of memoir from a period of my life when I became a mother through adoption and coming off the mission field and discovering the Catholic worker, so there is a lot going on in my life at this time. But kind of pulling apart from the way I imagined my life playing out to the reality I was confronted with, and kind of learning along the way to find God in the brokenness and in the weakness rather than the narrative that is more typically presented to us, at least in the United States, that God is always in the victories and in the triumphs, and when things go according to plan or when things look nice on the outside. This is kind of my story, and [also] a theological exploration, of this idea that weakness is a place to encounter God.
Steve: Part of the reason I think I wanted to read that book – I’d browsed it before, but I wanted to read it cover to cover – was I was fascinated by the concept. I don’t know, I think it’s important whether or not a lot of people have read it because I kind of wonder if some ways as an author that’s your story, and in some ways every book you ever write will be kind of rewriting that theme and refining it and taking it apart at different levels.
Shannon: That’s really interesting. I have people point out to me that it seems really different than my second book, which was “Rewilding Motherhood.” I can see why someone would say that, but it really has been sort of a foundation that my life has unfolded from. I think to me it makes a lot of sense that they would go together, but also come in the order that they did because I think you’re right. A lot of what is in “Embracing Weakness” is really like what made me who I am so that everything I write in the future will kind of come from that.
Steve: It’s a fascinating story because I think you had already used the term “waking up.” I think that’s so much of the spiritual journey: we’ve all been given a story we’re supposed to live, and those who embark on a spiritual journey wake up to the fact that that story may not apply to them, so then [they ask themselves], ‘what is my story?’, and then waking up to the reality of our life. I think you are unusual and amazing that you had launched that journey at a much younger age than most people do. Have you heard that before?
Shannon: I have, I have. In some ways, I’ve kind of always been an old soul. It’s sort of how I’m wired, so it makes sense to me. But I also do think that that’s true that I feel like I sort of … I don’t know that I would call it a midlife crisis, but it felt almost akin to that and I was in my late 20s, early 30s, so I suppose that is fairly young. But I also think the circumstances that I chose for myself sort of pushed me into that season of life because I sort of chose some really hard things.
Steve: You wanted to live a life of faith in the culture that you grew up in. In some ways, becoming a missionary was really the peak of that mountain, and you launched on that at a very early age. And then you discovered the gifts and the shortcomings of that life pretty quickly, correct?
Shannon: Yes, definitely. I love traveling, but it was like, “This is probably not for me.” It was good, because it really forced me to question my beliefs and whether my purpose on earth really is to get people saved or to get people to move from one side of a line to the other. Eventually, I realized that that’s not actually part of my theology or spirituality, and it’s not a calling for me, for sure. There was a lot of good, but it [also] was a lot of wrestling and questioning. And tha
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295
https://www.fscenter.org
Steve Spilde: Today, it is my pleasure to re-welcome to the podcast Shannon K. Evans, who joined us last year [when] we had a great visit. I’m excited to visit with her again. Shannon is an author, she is a presenter, she is a mother, she is a wife. She’s coming to the Franciscan Spirituality Center in October; we’ll talk about that later. We’re excited about that retreat. But mainly, I’m excited about another opportunity to visit with Shannon. Welcome.
Shannon Evans: Thank you. It’s nice to be back.
Steve: As I was preparing for this recording, I was reading your book, “Embracing Weakness,” which I love. I love the title. I love the content.
Shannon: You’re one of the few who loved the title. It’s not exactly an attractive title.
Steve: I think it’s the kind of book that once you continue to establish your reputation and your body of work, it will get revisited and probably reissued at some point in the future. I really do think it’s a profound [book]. Could you summarize the content of that book?
Shannon: It’s not a memoir, per se, but it has aspects of memoir from a period of my life when I became a mother through adoption and coming off the mission field and discovering the Catholic worker, so there is a lot going on in my life at this time. But kind of pulling apart from the way I imagined my life playing out to the reality I was confronted with, and kind of learning along the way to find God in the brokenness and in the weakness rather than the narrative that is more typically presented to us, at least in the United States, that God is always in the victories and in the triumphs, and when things go according to plan or when things look nice on the outside. This is kind of my story, and [also] a theological exploration, of this idea that weakness is a place to encounter God.
Steve: Part of the reason I think I wanted to read that book – I’d browsed it before, but I wanted to read it cover to cover – was I was fascinated by the concept. I don’t know, I think it’s important whether or not a lot of people have read it because I kind of wonder if some ways as an author that’s your story, and in some ways every book you ever write will be kind of rewriting that theme and refining it and taking it apart at different levels.
Shannon: That’s really interesting. I have people point out to me that it seems really different than my second book, which was “Rewilding Motherhood.” I can see why someone would say that, but it really has been sort of a foundation that my life has unfolded from. I think to me it makes a lot of sense that they would go together, but also come in the order that they did because I think you’re right. A lot of what is in “Embracing Weakness” is really like what made me who I am so that everything I write in the future will kind of come from that.
Steve: It’s a fascinating story because I think you had already used the term “waking up.” I think that’s so much of the spiritual journey: we’ve all been given a story we’re supposed to live, and those who embark on a spiritual journey wake up to the fact that that story may not apply to them, so then [they ask themselves], ‘what is my story?’, and then waking up to the reality of our life. I think you are unusual and amazing that you had launched that journey at a much younger age than most people do. Have you heard that before?
Shannon: I have, I have. In some ways, I’ve kind of always been an old soul. It’s sort of how I’m wired, so it makes sense to me. But I also do think that that’s true that I feel like I sort of … I don’t know that I would call it a midlife crisis, but it felt almost akin to that and I was in my late 20s, early 30s, so I suppose that is fairly young. But I also think the circumstances that I chose for myself sort of pushed me into that season of life because I sort of chose some really hard things.
Steve: You wanted to live a life of faith in the culture that you grew up in. In some ways, becoming a missionary was really the peak of that mountain, and you launched on that at a very early age. And then you discovered the gifts and the shortcomings of that life pretty quickly, correct?
Shannon: Yes, definitely. I love traveling, but it was like, “This is probably not for me.” It was good, because it really forced me to question my beliefs and whether my purpose on earth really is to get people saved or to get people to move from one side of a line to the other. Eventually, I realized that that’s not actually part of my theology or spirituality, and it’s not a calling for me, for sure. There was a lot of good, but it [also] was a lot of wrestling and questioning. And tha
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