Sunny Banana

#45 | Have you been in the dark belly of a monster? Why a spiritual father/mother is essential

Subscribe below for 10% off all Biltong from Jarvah Biltong and exclusive Sunny Banana content https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/subscribe [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/subscribe] Ten reps can feel impossible until someone looks you in the eye and believes you can do them. After a morning at Trojan Gym in Hastings, I share a small moment that caught me off guard: I’m grinding through dips in tired little sets, then a stranger asks, “Can you do ten for me?” I manage ten straight reps, and it leaves me wondering what just happened and why simple encouragement can change our limits so quickly. That question takes us somewhere deeper: who is rooting for you, and do you actually know it? I talk about the Orthodox Christian practice of spiritual fatherhood and godparents, and how a parish priest, monk, or nun can become a steady guide. This isn’t about having perfect answers; it’s about having a trusted person who helps you stay honest, brave, and open to mercy when you’re tempted to hide. We also explore confession and the biblical call to expose darkness rather than live in it. When anger, lust, jealousy, and shame stay buried, they grow heavier and drag us down. When we bring them into the light, they can be healed, redeemed, and transformed. Along the way I reflect on Jonah, the cry of “Lord, help me”, Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, plus a couple of quotes that underline the urgency of stepping into the light now. If you found this meaningful, subscribe, share it with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a review. Who is the person in your life you can call for a coffee and speak honestly with? Drop us a line [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/fan_mail/new] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/support]

#44 | Anger And Lust As Fuel For God

Anger, lust, jealousy, pride, cravings, addiction, we usually talk about them like they’re glitches to delete. I’m taking a different angle today, sparked by reading Orthodox bishop and theologian Kallistos Ware in The Image Of The Father, where he asks a brave question: are the passions evil by nature, or are they human energies that can be redirected and transfigured? We sit with the language that really bites: do we say mortify or redirect, eradicate or educate, eliminate or transfigure? I share honestly that these aren’t abstract ideas for me. They show up in real life, and they can either push us into disconnection from our neighbour, disconnection from God, and disconnection from ourselves, or they can become the very place where grace starts to work. We talk about practical redirection. What happens when anger stops targeting people and turns towards the roots of evil instead? What would it look like to educate lust and craving, training desire towards prayer, worship, time with God, and love of neighbour? This is the Orthodox Christian vision of transformation: not becoming less human, but becoming more human than we’ve ever been before, shaped into the image we were created to bear. If this reflection helps, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What passion do you most want to see transformed? Drop us a line [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/fan_mail/new] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/support]

#43 | The Miracle Was Right In Front Of You

A woman is healed of blindness by Saint Brigid of Kildare, takes in the world with tears in her eyes, and then makes a request that stops you cold: “Make me blind again.” That ancient story is not just strange, it is diagnostic. It forces us to ask what “seeing” is for, and whether clarity of vision always brings us closer to God, truth, and beauty. We pick up that thread through the Orthodox Church’s Sunday of the blind man and Father Alexander Groves’ homily on spiritual blindness. Even with perfect eyesight, we can miss what matters most and reduce life to “mere mechanical fact”. The question is not only what is in front of us, but how we attend to it. We talk about distraction, the way modern life trains our focus, and why spiritual life often begins with learning to notice again. Along the way we draw on Dr Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary to explore how attention shapes what we receive, and we end with a line from Kallistos Ware that reframes miracles entirely: the greatest vision is seeing a holy and humble person. If you have ever met someone whose humility felt like light, you will understand what we mean. If this stirred something in you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. What helps you see the world more truthfully? Drop us a line [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/fan_mail/new] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/support]

#42 | Baptism Did Not End The Battle It Made It Real - The Sunny Banana was interviewed!

You can hear it when someone stops treating faith like a label and starts treating it like a life. Jonah (formerly an Anglican lay minister and school chaplain from South Africa) tells the story of how candles, incense, and a teenage confirmation first woke his heart, and how the Church’s witness cut through the racial narratives of a divided country with one stubborn truth: every person bears the image of God.  From an unexpected meeting with an Ethiopian Orthodox community in Johannesburg to the slow pull of the Jesus Prayer and The Way of a Pilgrim, the path to Eastern Orthodox Christianity is anything but tidy. We talk honestly about chaplaincy in a secular school setting, the temptation to keep religion vague, and the inner conflict that grows when churches begin mirroring the surrounding culture. Then we trace the practical steps that made the difference: showing up at services, meeting Orthodox Christians in real life, joining catechesis, and learning the faith through worship rather than hype.  Mount Athos comes up as a “thin place” that pushes the mind into the heart, and Jonah shares what changed after baptism: not instant ease, but sharper spiritual warfare, deeper repentance, and a stronger tug towards Christ through the Jesus Prayer. We also explore why he chose the name Jonah, how the saints become family, and what it looks like to bring faith into work through a podcast and a new business venture.  If you are curious about conversion to Orthodoxy, Orthodox baptism as an adult, the Jesus Prayer, or simply how to live Christianity without turning it into a performance, this conversation will meet you where you are. Subscribe, share this with a friend who is searching, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. Drop us a line [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/fan_mail/new] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/support]

#41 | Tyres Flat, Soul Tired: Time For A Church Pit Stop

A message recorded while driving, sparked by a phrase on the back of a lorry: “Making the world a better home”. It sounds right, but it also raises a harder question. What if the world is not quite “home” in the way we mean it and what if it is more like a pit stop on the way to something deeper? With Pascha still fresh on our lips and “Christ is risen” still echoing, we sit with that tension: gratitude for this life, and honesty about how bruising it can be. From there, we explore a practical Orthodox Christian way of seeing spiritual growth. We touch on Roman Catholic teaching about purgatory as a place of cleansing, then contrast it with an Orthodox emphasis that purification happens here and now. This life becomes the space where we respond to the fall, where sin is not just “rule breaking” but damage that needs real repair. The pit stop analogy helps: tyres wear down, parts break, and you do not finish the race by pretending nothing happened. You stop, you receive help, and you get made fit to continue. That is where the Orthodox Church comes in not as a club or an identity badge, but as the place where healing actually happens through worship, prayer, teaching, and sacramental life. We share a personal milestone of baptism and receiving Holy Communion for the first time, and how that experience made the “pit stop” reality of the Church feel immediate and concrete. We also name the uncomfortable test of all spirituality: if we cannot find mercy for our neighbour, communion with God becomes more than difficult, it becomes distorted. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not sentimental ideas; they are the doorway to mercy. If this reflection lands with you, subscribe for more, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find the show. What part of your life most needs healing right now? Drop us a line [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/fan_mail/new] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2429544/support]