[ENCORE] Wonder in the Wilderness: David Gate on Poetry, Care, and Staying Tender in a Harsh World

Description:Sometimes a conversation lands so gently—and so powerfully—that it deserves another moment in the light.

In this encore episode, Jen revisits her conversation with poet, writer, and visual artist David Gate, whose work explores themes of care, community, and spiritual resilience.

Jen first discovered David the way so many of us discover the words that change us: late at night on Instagram, stumbling across a poem that made her stop mid-scroll and immediately send it to six friends. That was the beginning of a quiet fandom that eventually turned into this conversation—one that felt less like an interview and more like sitting in the presence of someone who has learned how to notice beauty in hard places.

David’s work—including his collection A Rebellion of Care—is rooted in the radical idea that tenderness, attention, and compassion are not small acts. They are resistance. They are survival. They are a way through the wilderness.

Together, Jen and David explore the ways language can become a lifeline during difficult seasons. They talk about the courage of softness in a harsh world, the sacred practice of paying attention, and how poetry can give us words for things we thought we had to carry alone.

This conversation sits right at the intersection: the wilderness of grief, uncertainty, and fatigue—and the wonder that still insists on growing in the cracks.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• “I did not want to have an email job and I did not want to be in meetings that could have been emails. I did not want to be on Slack. I just didn't want that to be what I was spending my time doing. I loved caring for people, and I loved creating and writing, and I got to do that within the church world.” – David Gate

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• “It’s a constant battle to speak the truth. Even things we all know It can be difficult to say, if it's not something that is normally said, and it's not something that is normally expressed, so you have to fight for that and you have to fight for your experience of the truth. You have to fight for your story. You have to fight for all of that.” – David Gate

• “I think it's very, very difficult for men to reach for emotional honesty because everything tells you that you're failing if you do that. But it's the most important work right now. And so much of what men are actually looking for in this world, intimacy, a sense of place, a sense of belonging, companionship, adventure, excitement, is on the other side of reaching for that emotional honesty.” – David Gate

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• A Rebellion of Care: Poems and Essays by David Gate - https://amzn.to/4jjf87X

• Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand by Jeff Chu - https://amzn.to/3GnS21w

• Cultivating Belonging and Evolving Faith with Jeff Chu - https://jenhatmaker.com/podcasts/series-64/cultivating-belonging-and-evolving-faith-with-jeff-chu/

• Sarah Bessey - https://www.sarahbessey.com/

• Armando Veve, Illustrator - https://www.instagram.com/armandoveve/

• Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker - https://amzn.to/3YHKgpw

• Sinners film (2025) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31193180/

• Malaprop's Bookstore, ...