So how did it all start?
About Sabrina Johnson RScP
I realized that all through my life I have been blessed, that the world adopted me into its loving care and support. For this reason it is my life’s desire to pay it forward with service to others. My podcast LISTEN UP LISTEN IN is learning more about the myriad ways others serve and care for the world around them: what motivates them, what inspires them, what they love, and how they embrace it all in their work.
In May 2022 I graduated from Claremont School of Theology with a Master of Divinity and, just as when I first started this graduate program in 2018, I had no idea what I was going to do with my degree. So, I looked around me at people who I saw were ministering to the world in ways that uplifted me, ignited me with their passion for serving, inspired me to join in the healing, and gave me joy as I witnessed and experienced the bodacious love they lavished upon the world around them.
I wanted to ask them about their path, their mission, their passion to serve and better the world. I imagined this would take place in the way of informational interviews, over cups of coffee or tea. But there were so many people I wanted to interview, with so many questions, and all but a few were local to where I live in Prescott, Arizona, having recently moved from Los Angeles a year ago. It was from this desire that Listen Up Listen In came to be.
I believe we each have our own unique divinely given gifts and talents that we can share with others to uplift, ignite, heal, and give joy, and so the list of guests that I want to interview is endless. My hope is that as we all listen up to hear what they say, we also listen in to hear what our own heart tells us, guides us, moves us to do as we come together to realize the truth that we are all interdependent and interconnected by a Higher Good that loves us into being our best for ourselves and others
My invitation to choose your "spiritual sushi"
LISTEN UP LISTEN IN podcast is my invitation to you to learn alongside me as we listen to guests share their journeys of how they have come to serve the world. This is not a “religious” podcast, although many of my guests happen to be clergy from various faith traditions. Rather, this is a podcast that offers everyone who listens up to turn within and listen to what resonates with them and how they may wish to go on a deeper journey of compassionate self-discovery as they seek ways to serve others.
When I lived in the San Fernando Valley in SoCal, there was a sushi restaurant that had a big conveyer belt in the middle of it, with offerings of all different kinds of sushi. You were able to choose what appealed to you as you surveyed the conveyor belt. This is how I look at my LISTEN UP LISTEN IN podcast, as a kind of “spiritual sushi conveyer belt” – you pick what appeals to you and let the rest go on by.
What's the elephant about?
In 2011, I celebrated the New Year in Chiang Mai, Thailand, mentoring teens who were volunteering at The Elephant Sanctuary. We were told upon arrival that there were only two things elephants care about: food, and one another. When I heard this, I knew that I already had a deep understanding of these magnificent beings. As I spent time with the eles, I understood that they care for one another on such a profound level and with such immense capacity that it transcends what we can humanly express with words. For we humans have the “impediment” of language that many times makes it challenging to live from the heart. And so I remember the eles and how they “let heart take lead,” to quote Medicine Man Uqualla (who I hope will be a LISTEN UP LISTEN IN guest).
