Ronnie McBrayer

Backsliders Bonus: ”Don’t Worry About Tomorrow”

Bobby Rains captured another fun recording from those old boys Ronnie plays music with: The Backsliders. This is a great blues tune - "Don't Worry About Tomorrow."

Life Interrupted

"Your life is a stone thrown into a body of water. The ripples roll causing actions and reactions long after your energy is expended, the moving waters finding shores upon which we will never stand...What ripples are you making? When your existence has been interrupted, and the force of your life has been expended - and it is left to germinate - to expand - to grow or to deplete here - can you leave knowing that you put that force and energy to use in the best of places? I’m not talking about changing the world; about being famous; about being so important that you will be the subject matter taught in history class one day. It’s just not that complicated. It’s about living intentionally - purposefully. It’s about being awake, being aware, that this one life is your opportunity."

A Backsliders Bonus: ”See Me Through”

Bobby Rains, who provides recording and technical assistance for Ronnie's podcast, occasionally snags audio from "The Backsliders," the band Ronnie has fronted for the last decade. Here is one of those audio grabs: "See Me Through." It is a song based on an obscure Van Morrison tune, adjusted and rearranged by The Backsliders.

The Cost of Kindness

A brush with fame...and a revolutionary, simple way of living. These come together in Ronnie's latest talk on practicing kindness.

The Rusty Goat

Ronnie uses this talk to announce a new project that he and Cindy are undertaking: "The Rusty Goat - A Coastal Farm and Retreat." Listen to hear more about this worthy project.

”Floating...Obedient to the Stream”

"Floating...Obedient to the Stream," is line from an early play of William Shakespeare - and it is a prescriptive way to live - as instructed by Jesus in the Gospel of John. He teaches us to "go with the flow" of the living water already within us.

Pay Attention: A Tribute to Frederick Buechner

Ronnie shares words from the late Frederick Buechner who passed way in August of 2022, at the age of 96 years young. 

The Grapes of Wrath

"Dylan. Ward Howe. Steinbeck. They all find their message and metaphor in the ancient Jewish prophets. It is a consistent message, retold a thousand times and in a thousand different ways and places, with each telling ringing as true as the last: Perpetual, systematic injustice and unfairness always ends with destruction. We can be certain that when we champion greed over fairness and equality; when we take the side of power and the powerful and fail to protect the vulnerable and the least of these; when we reward dishonesty and mock integrity; when we would rather destroy what is good and what would help others than to cultivate it and share it, we are trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

That Great Speckled Bird

What do Charles Darwin, Jeff Miller, Guy Smith, and Roy Acuff have in common? You will have to listen to Ronnie's latest talk to find out! 
This talk was delivered on the 15th Anniversary of the first meeting of A Simple Faith. 

Make The World Go Away

"The easiest path to take in regard to our world is to simply curse the darkness. It is to 'rage, rage against the dying of the light.' We would make the world go away by damning it all to hell on the one hand - or by force - attempting to shape it into our image on the other. But the only way to make the world as we know it to go away is by changing it; and the only way to change it is by loving service in the small ways each of us have been gifted." - Ronnie