Love Leads Us Home

Love Leads Us Home

Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation between two long-time recovering priests, Father Bill W and Father James R, leans straight into what they call “the God problem” and how love might be the missing piece in spiritual recovery. Working through the final chapters of John D. Caputo’s *What to Believe: 12 Brief Lessons in Radical Theology*, they chat about love as the real test of belief.

As Caputo puts it, “If you want to know what you really believe, ask yourself what you really love.” From there, they unpack the idea that God is less a distant being and more what happens when people give themselves over to unconditional love. You’ll hear them contrast head-based religion with heart-based experience, linking it back to 12-Step life, step three, step ten, and daily practices like two-way prayer.

They talk about moments in prayer where words fall away and it simply feels like “climbing into the great lap” of the divine, where anxiety eases and acceptance finally feels real. Along the way, they wrestle with religious images of God, idolatry, and how ego can twist spirituality into rigid rules or spiritual scorekeeping.

There’s plenty here for anyone who has ever struggled with belief yet still longs for a sense of connection, especially those in recovery who “jumped on the God wagon” but still have questions. Despite the heavy themes—death, finiteness, tragedy—they keep it grounded with humour, talking about tightropes and wheelbarrows, constipated Christians, and the string quartet playing on the Titanic as a picture of saying “yes” to life even when nothing is guaranteed.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your recovery, your doubts, and your longing for love can all fit together, this conversation might give you something worth sitting with. What would it look like for love, rather than fear or dogma, to lead you home?