ExF: The Heart Behind “Highlands and the Heartache”
Expressions of Faith
Welcome to Expressions of Faith, a series where we are highlighting the artistic and creative endeavors of students in the Christian community on Cornell’s campus. Today’s addition to the series is from Sophia Jeon and Olivia Simoni, the creators of “Highlands and the Heartache,” and their intentions to build a united Christian community on Cornell’s campus through podcasting.
BY OLIVIA SIMONI AND SOPHIA JEON
1. What is it that you do and how did it start? What led you to the decision to share it with a more public audience?
We host a podcast, called Highlands in the Heartache, that’s been out on Spotify since September of 2019. Through the podcast, we invite our brothers and sisters in Christ to share their testimonies, display authenticity in each season of life, and encourage one another to live in the victory that Jesus brings. The idea of the podcast started with our mutual desire to see students from different organizations on campus share what God is doing in their life and come together in unity.
2. What is it about podcasting that attracted you to pursue it, and how has doing it impacted your faith?
“I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.” 1 Corinthians 1:10 NLT
We were attracted in particular to the idea of a podcast because we thought it would allow for a wide diversity of voices to come together on one platform. We’ve had freshmen and graduate students, men and women, as well as a variety of ethnicities and denominations represented, all proclaiming in unity that we serve a God who is good in all seasons—in the lows and the highs, the highlands and the heartache. The process of interviewing people is usually pretty organic, vulnerable, and honest too. We start by getting to know the person outside of recording time, then we prepare three or four key questions that we share with the interviewee beforehand. On the day of recording, we all pray together right before we start, and then from there, usually the Holy Spirit takes over and the conversation is free to move the way God stirs our hearts to move it. Because of this open structure, we are always blown away by the way the Lord speaks through us and through the people we interview in ways we could never have planned. This way, it’s really God’s podcast and not ours, so we cannot boast.
Starting the podcast has impacted our faith in so many ways… But mostly, we’ve been humbled by the hope and perseverance of the students and friends we interview, and encouraged by God’s persistent presence in their lives. Hearing how each testimony has the Lord’s hand at the center of it keeps on reminding us over and over again of God’s faithfulness. That He is a God over whose dominion never ends and whose love never fails. That He is intricately intertwined in the lives of His children, and that the Holy Spirit binds us as a church. Mainly, the podcast has taught us so much about our God and His people.
3. Vice versa, how has your faith influenced or impacted how you go about your podcast?
“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be as we are one -- I in them and you in me -- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:20-23 NIV
Throughout our last three and a half years in Cornell, we have always dreamed and hoped to see unity among all the believers. Whether we are from AAIV, Cru, CBS, Christian Union, Bethany, or other campus fellowships, the truth is that we are all part of one body—the body of Christ. Aside from this truth, Jesus is very clear about the effect of our unity as believers on the world around us, as in our unity ministers to the hearts of unbelievers. It draws them in because they are curious to know what it is about this underlying thread of unity (Jesus and our love for him) that feels out of this world in a different way. Our faith in the unifying power of Christ is truly the heart of Highlands and the Heartache, because we seek to connect different groups of believers across their stories of what God has been doing in their personal lives. It is Him and His promises that fuel our motivations to continue this work that we do for the podcast. All is done unto Him, for Him and through Him.
4. Can you give us a glimpse into your creative process?
For each and every season, we pray into what we believe are the words that God gives unto us in that particular time for the students. Our first season, for example, was titled “You’re the Same in Every Season”, and released in the first couple of months of the fall semester. The inspiration came from sensing that students were experiencing many transitions from returning back to school. We were also thinking about the first year students, in particular, as they were about to enter into a whole new environment for the next four years. The creative process looks different for each season, though. The second season, “Held by God”, and the drawing for the cover was inspired by a conversation with a friend, who literally held her hands out in the same way as shown in the cover to express how she felt like she was being held by God. Once, we were on a prayer walk and meditating on Psalm 42, and then God simply gave us a word for the next season, which ended up to be our third season, “Deep calls to deep”.
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” Psalm 42:7 NIV
These moments of inspiration are small but beyond meaningful and exciting to us, as His guidance and leading affirm us to continue to do the work for the podcast. Not every day of making a podcast is glorious. The long hours of editing sound bites and rearranging snippets of recordings can easily become mind-numbing, but they are all worth it at the end, when we get to the moment of posting and releasing each and every episode that holds the story of someone that we have come to know and love in interviewing them and recording together.
You can find the latest season of “Highlands and the Heartache” on Spotify: