By Joey Taylor
Cincinnati, OH — What if the world’s fractures were not proof of our separateness but invitations to remember we belong to one another?
That question lives at the heart of Inviting Oneness, a podcast created by EquaSion, a non-partisan civic organization seeking to build a community of Faith and Friendship in Greater Cincinnati, where connection becomes belonging through affinity groups, community gatherings, and the Festival of Faiths.
Each episode of the podcast begins with a personal story where the illusion of distance gives way to the deeper truth of our shared humanity. Again and again, storytellers describe this movement from fear to friendship, from difference to kinship. A priest finds unexpected belonging with international students over coffee. A Muslim scholar reflects on the courage to hold one’s faith while honoring the convictions of others. A Jewish educator speaks of listening as sacred practice. A Hindu pilgrim discovers divine presence in the kindness of strangers. Their stories are diverse, yet the movement is the same: toward connection, curiosity, and compassion.
Deidre Hazelbaker, Executive Director of EquaSion, says “Inviting Oneness helps me reset and reconnect. These short, powerful stories are ideal for the morning commute, quiet moments at the end of the day, or any time you need a break. They call us to remember who we are to one another. We’ve been at these crossroads before, and we don’t have to repeat cycles of hate or violence. Each episode nudges us toward choosing connection, choosing courage, choosing our shared humanity. It’s a small practice with the power to shift how we move through the world.”
Through these conversations, Inviting Oneness becomes less a podcast and more a spiritual exercise in paying attention. Listeners are invited not simply to consume stories, but to notice the subtle ways oneness shows up in their own lives. The project suggests that unity is not the erasure of difference but a deep awareness of our interdependence. Oneness, in this light, is not agreement, it is recognition.
These voices compose a Cincinnati chorus that is diverse in creed but unified in spirit. Inviting Oneness is less about agreement and more about a combination of intention and attention. In listening to one another, we practice the possibility that compassion, curiosity, and wonder might yet hold us together.
In a time when fear too easily defines our public life, these stories remind us that the work of community begins with the willingness to listen. Real listening, what one guest called “laying down fear,” is itself a form of love. It allows us to see and be seen, to host one another across boundaries of belief, race, and experience, and to remember that the sacred is most often encountered in relationship.
EquaSion’s hope, and the hope of Inviting Oneness, is that these small circles of story will ripple outward: into congregations, classrooms, and coffee shops; into civic life and family life; into the places where oneness is still waiting to be noticed.
To listen and learn more, listen on your preferred podcast platform or watch on YouTube.