Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick

In 1995, Michael sat down with Eugene Peterson for a conversation that was published in the Mars Hill Review and later in Eugene's own book Subversive Spirituality. There were no podcasts then. No one could have imagined that someday a person driving to work or sitting alone at home could put on headphones and hear a conversation recorded decades earlier. Eugene believed words were never merely information — they carried presence, they revealed, they deepened intimacy. So Michael began to wonder: what if this conversation could have a voice? And then a better possibility emerged. What if Eugene's words could be read by his son?
The voice you hear speaking Eugene Peterson's words belongs to Eugene's son, Eric Peterson, who recently retired after twenty-nine years of pastoral ministry of his own.
In the conversation, Eugene talks about why he's suspicious of Bible studies, what it means to live a life of prayer rather than merely say your prayers, why poets and novelists are the church's most important allies, and what it looks like to stop working from anxiety and start working from grace. At the end, Michael asks what Eugene wants to be remembered for. He laughs at the question, says it isn't a good one, and then answers it.
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Dr. Alison Cook is a psychologist, host of The Best of You podcast, and the author of The Secure Soul — and the first line she wrote for that book was: a part of me doesn't like God very much. She assumed her editor would cut it. Her editor said it was staying.
That moment — a prayer walk in London, an eight-year-old part of her that didn't want to be there — opens a conversation with Michael about what it actually looks like to pay attention to the inner life. Alison and Michael talk about bids for connection: the tiny, persistent movements within us that signal something needs to be seen. They discuss how trust breaks — not just through the big wounds, but through the ordinary absence of presence, the childhood of empty sunlit rooms. They get into the shadow self, the young one, and what the difference between bruised and broken might mean for people who don't see themselves in the language of shattered things. And they talk about what it looks like to train the soul — not through willpower or discipline, but through two movements: recognize and return.
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ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST:
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Seven spots remain for the October men's weekend — and Michael wanted the men (and women!) who still needed to hear about it to hear it from two men who've been there.
Matt found out about the Restoring the Soul podcast from a therapist in 2018, listened for a few months, heard an ad for the men's weekend, and signed up. He showed up to the airport terrified, texted his therapist from the gate, flew to Denver, and left four days later with something he'd never had before: the sense that he was seen without anyone trying to fix him. That experience eventually redirected his career. He's now a licensed therapist who staffs the weekend himself.
Brian arrived at 3:59 for a 4:00 start. He came because he was exhausted, running from everything, and carrying more shame than he knew. He was told it would be the safest place he'd ever been. He didn't believe it — until it was.
This episode is a conversation between Michael, Matt, and Brian about what 66 hours in Monument, Colorado actually looks like, and what it's still doing in their lives years later. The weekend runs October 1–4. Seven spots remain. restoringthesoulweekend.com
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ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST:
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Dr. Jim Wilder has been thinking about the relationship between brain science and spiritual formation since before most people knew the question existed. He trained under one of the inventors of the EEG machine, spent years working alongside Dallas Willard, and has spent decades building what he calls the Life Model — a unified account of what it looks like to grow up into the likeness of Christ, neurologically and spiritually. This conversation is an hour inside that work.
Michael and Jim talk about why the right brain runs faster than the conscious mind — and what that means for every Christian who has tried to think their way into a changed life. They talk about why joy isn't a rare gift but the baseline the brain was designed to run on, and what happens when it isn't. They discuss identity, shame, and what it means for the brain to perceive itself only through how other people see us. And Jim tells the story of a professor who looked at a kid who couldn't spell and said, "You might want to consider being a writer." Eighteen books later, that moment still explains everything.
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ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST:
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- Email us at info@restoringthesoul.com 

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Andy Crouch's The Tech-Wise Family isn't about keeping pornography out of your home. It's about building the kind of home where you know what you actually want — and where technology doesn't quietly replace it. In part two of this conversation, Michael and Andy get into the ten commitments at the heart of the book, and they're not what you'd expect.
They talk about why the goal is wisdom and courage rather than limits, and how untethered access to technology quietly reinforces the fear of being known. They discuss what Sabbath actually looks like — not collapsing on the couch but feasting, playing, worshipping, and resting — and why Andy thinks it's the most broken commandment. They get into what kids say they actually want help with when it comes to devices, which turns out not to be pornography but sleep. And the episode ends somewhere no one expects: at the bedside of the dying, and what it means to be a family that knows how to show up, put the phone down, and stay.
Support the show

ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST:
- Follow us on YouTube
- Tweet us at @michaeljcusick and @PodcastRTS
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram & Twitter
- Follow Michael on Twitter
- Email us at info@restoringthesoul.com 

Thanks for listening!