Jessica Gauthier: Notes of Spirituality in the Church Garden │ September 5, 2025

In a lovely synchronization to the new Fall season, this episode is a deep dive into the spiritual life of the pastoral minister at Cedar Park, Jessica Gauthier.

She is a spiritual care professional, theologian, preacher, friend to plants and people, and accomplished singer. Follow the garden pathway with Jessica and Joanne that leads to a conversation about theology, Christian history, reforming church, and the cultivation of joy.

🖋 Show notes from Jessica

Link to Scriptures cited in order

16:31

Reference to women "saved through childbearing" (1 Timothy 2:15)

Augustine teaches that all humans share one rational nature, in which contemplation and action are united as “one flesh,” so that Paul’s words on women and childbearing signify, sacramentally, the true offspring of faith—good works joined with love and holiness, made fruitful only in Christ. De Trinitate, XII. 

Edith Stein was a Jewish theologian murdered in the Holocaust. Her Carmelite name is Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. John Paul II named her as co-Patroness of Europe. She also argued against an essentialist interpretation of this passage.

“The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace,” in Essays on Woman, 2nd ed., revised, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, volume 2, edited by Lucy Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, translated by Freda Mary Oben (Washington: ICS, 1996), 59-86.

19:00 Methodist History: Revivalist Phoebe Palmer

20:00 A Church with the Soul of a Nation (Phyllis D. Airhart, 2013).

27:30 

Hymn: “He Brought Me Out” [link to hymn] (Psalm 40:2-3)

30:00 

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2011). Also a TV Series for BBC Four: "A History of Christianity" with the author presenting

35:00  “Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda est secundum verbum Dei”

“The church, having been reformed, is always needing to be reformed according to the word of God.”

36:00

Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

39:00

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” (MLK Jr)

“The kingdom of God is always but coming.” (Rauschenbaum)

“Already, Not Yet”: this is called “inaugurated eschatology” 

39:30 - Augustine: “My weight is my love.” Confessions, XIV.ix

46:00

The Church Militant is the community of believers on earth in spiritual struggle (2 Timothy 2:3–4). 

The Church Triumphant refers to the saints in God’s presence, beyond human flaws (Revelation 7:9–10).

49:30 

Humanity made in God’s image. Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27)

"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden." (Genesis 2:8)

"In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:2)

55-60 minutes 

Process Philosophy - God affected by time

Divine Simplicity - will and want are one

Augustine Divine Eternity God beyond time

Calvinism - heritage of Presybterian roots

.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}