On Being
Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning, hosted by Krista Tippett. Every Thursday a new discovery about the immensity of our lives — and frequent special features like poetry, music and Q + A with Krista.
Thu, October 17, 2019
Jennifer Bailey and Lennon Flowers — An Invitation to Brave Space
Lennon Flowers and Rev. Jennifer Bailey embody a particular wisdom of millennials around grief, loss, and faith. Together they created The People’s Supper, which uses shared meals to build trust and connection among people of different identities and perspectives. Since 2017, they have hosted more than 1,500 meals. In the words they use, the practices they cultivate (some of which we’ve collected on onbeing.org), and the way they think, Flowers and Bailey issue an invitation not to safe space, but to brave space. Rev. Jennifer Bailey is co-founder of The People’s Supper and the founder and executive director of Faith Matters Network. She is also an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and her writing appears regularly in publications including “Sojourners” and The Huffington Post. Lennon Flowers is co-founder of The People’s Supper and the co-founder and executive director of The Dinner Party. She is also an Ashoka Fellow and an Aspen Ideas Scholar. She has written for CNN, “YES!,” “Forbes,” Open Democracy, EdWeek, and “Fast Company.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, September 26, 2019
Imani Perry - More Beautiful
James Baldwin said, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” Imani Perry embodies that prism. For the past few years, Perry has been pondering the notions of slow work and resistant joy as she writes about what it means to raise her two black sons — as a thinker and writer at the intersection of law, race, culture, and literature. This live conversation was recorded at the Chautauqua Institution.
Thu, September 12, 2019
Ta-Nehisi Coates — Imagining a New America
Ta-Nehisi Coates says we must love our country the way we love our friends — and not spare the hard truths. “Can you get to a place where citizens are encouraged to see themselves critically, where they’re encouraged to see their history critically?” he asks. Coates is a poetic journalist and a defining voice of our times. He’s with us in a conversation that is joyful, hard, kind, soaring, and down-to-earth all at once. He spoke with Krista as part of the 2017 Chicago Humanities Festival. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. His books include “Between the World and Me,” “We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy,” and the novel “The Water Dancer.” He’s also the current writer of the Marvel comics “The Black Panther” and “Captain America.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This episode originally aired in November 2017.
Thu, August 15, 2019
Katy Payne — In the Presence of Elephants and Whales
We were made and set here, the writer Annie Dillard once wrote, “to give voice to our astonishments.” Katy Payne is a renowned acoustic biologist with a Quaker sensibility. She’s found her astonishment — and many life lessons — in listening to two of the world’s largest creatures. From the wild coast of Argentina to the rainforests of Africa, she discovered that humpback whales compose ever-changing songs and that elephants communicate across long distances by infrasound. Katy Payne is a researcher in the bioacoustics research program of Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology and part of the research team that produced the original recording “Songs of the Humpback Whale.” Her book is Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This interview originally aired in February 2007.
Thu, August 15, 2019
Gordon Hempton — Silence and the Presence of Everything
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton collects sounds from around the world. He’s recorded inside Sitka spruce logs in the Pacific Northwest, thunder in the Kalahari Desert, and dawn breaking across six continents. An attentive listener, he says silence is an endangered species on the verge of extinction. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound but an absence of noise. We take in the world through his ears. Gordon Hempton is the founder of the One Square Inch of Silence Foundation, which recently expanded to become Quiet Parks International with the mission to “save quiet for the benefit of all life.” His books include One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet, co-authored with John Grossmann, and Earth Is A Solar Powered Jukebox: A Complete Guide to Listening, Recording, and Sound Designing with Nature. He’s also produced more than 60 albums of vanishing natural soundscapes. Despite a dramatic loss in hearing in recent years, he’s been able to release a collection of soundscapes called Global Sunrise: The Musical Sounds of Dawn and a podcast, Sound Escapes. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org. This interview originally aired in May 2012.
Thu, August 15, 2019
Shane Claiborne and Omar Saif Ghobash — Called and Conflicted
Spiritual border-crossing and social creativity were themes in a conversation between Shane Claiborne and Omar Saif Ghobash, two people who have lived with some discomfort within the religious groups they continue to love. Ghobash is a diplomat of the United Arab Emirates and author of Letters to a Young Muslim. One of his responses to the politicization of Islam has been to bring a new art gallery culture to Dubai, creating spaces for thought and beauty. Claiborne is a singular figure in Evangelical Christianity as co-founder of The Simple Way, an intentional neighborhood-based community in North Philadelphia. One of the things he’s doing now is a restorative justice project inspired by a Bible passage — to transform guns into garden tools. This conversation took place at the invitation of Interfaith Philadelphia, which hosted a year of civil conversations modeled after the work of On Being’s Civil Conversations Project. Shane Claiborne is the founder of The Simple Way, an intentional community in North Philadelphia. He’s recently written a book, Beating Guns, about the movement he co-leads to transform America’s guns into garden tools. His other books include The Irresistible Revolution. His Excellency Omar Saif Ghobash is now the assistant minister for cultural affairs in the Cabinet of the United Arab Emirates. He was formerly UAE ambassador to France and Russia. His book is Letters to a Young Muslim. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, August 08, 2019
Darnell Moore — Self - Reflection And Social Evolution
Darnell Moore says honest, uncomfortable conversations are a sign of love — and that self-reflection goes hand-in-hand with culture shift and social evolution. A writer and activist, he’s grown wise through his work on successful and less successful civic initiatives, including Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to remake the schools of Newark, New Jersey, and he is a key figure in the ongoing, under-publicized, creative story of The Movement for Black Lives. This conversation was recorded at the 2019 Skoll World Forum in Oxford, England. Darnell Moore is the U.S. head of strategy and programs at Breakthrough, a global human rights organization. He is a civic media fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab and a writer-in-residence at Columbia University’s Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics, and Social Justice. His book is “No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, August 01, 2019
Amichai Lau-Lavie — First Aid for Spiritual Seekers
Forms of religious devotion are shifting — and there’s a new world of creativity toward crafting spiritual life while exploring the depths of tradition. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a fun and forceful embodiment of this evolution. Born into an eminent and ancient rabbinical lineage, as a young adult he moved away from religion towards storytelling, theater, and drag. Today he leads a pop-up synagogue in New York City that takes as its tagline, “everybody-friendly, artist-driven, God-optional.” It’s not merely about spiritual community but about recovering the sacred and reinventing the very meaning of “we.” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a rabbi and founding spiritual leader of Lab/Shul in New York City. He’s also the founding director of Storahtelling. This interview originally aired in July 2017. Find the transcript at onbeing.org.
Thu, July 25, 2019
Ross Gay — Tending Joy and Practicing Delight
There is a question floating around the world right now: “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which writer Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?” He says joy has nothing to do with ease and “everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” The ephemeral nature of our being allows him to find delight in all sorts of places (especially his community garden). To be with Ross Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible, to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the work of justice. Ross Gay is a writer and a professor of English at Indiana University Bloomington. His books include the poetry collection “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” winner of the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and a book of essays, “The Book of Delights.” He is a board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard and a co-founder of The Tenderness Project. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, July 18, 2019
Jonathan Rowson — Integrating Our Souls, Systems, and Society
Applied philosopher Jonathan Rowson insists on holding a deeper appreciation for how our inner worlds influence our outer worlds. His research organization, Perspectiva, examines how social change happens across “systems, souls, and society.” “If we can get better and more nimble and more generous about how we move between those worlds, then the chance of creating a hope that makes sense for all of us is all the greater,” he says. We engage his broad spiritual lens on the great dynamics of our time, from social life to the economy to the climate. Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and director of the research institute Perspectiva based in London. He is also the former director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts and is a chess grandmaster and three-time British Chess Champion. His books include “The Seven Deadly Chess Sins,” “Chess for Zebras,” and, most recently, “Spiritualize: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges.” His forthcoming book, “The Moves that Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life,” will be published in November 2019. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, July 11, 2019
Esther Perel — The Erotic is an Antidote to Death
Therapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, books, and singular podcast, “Where Should We Begin?”, in which listeners are invited into emotionally raw therapy sessions she conducts with couples she’s never met before. For Perel, eroticism is a key ingredient to life — and it’s more than just a description of sexuality. “It is about how people connect to this quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of vitality, of renewal,” she says. “It is actually a spiritual, mystical experience of life.” Esther Perel has a private couples and family therapy practice in New York. She is executive producer and host of the podcast “Where Should We Begin?” She has also given two TED talks and is the author of the books “Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence” and “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Wed, July 03, 2019
Annette Gordon-Reed & Titus Kaphar — Are We Actually Citizens Here?
We must shine a light on the past to live more abundantly now. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed and painter Titus Kaphar lead us in an exploration of that as a public adventure in this conversation at the Citizen University annual conference. Gordon-Reed is the historian who introduced the world to Sally Hemings and the children she had with President Thomas Jefferson, and so realigned a primary chapter of the American story with the deeper, more complicated truth. Kaphar collapses historical timelines on canvas and created iconic images after the protests in Ferguson. Both are reckoning with history in order to repair the present. Titus Kaphar is an artist whose work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions from the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Seattle Art Museum to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His 2014 painting of Ferguson protesters was commissioned by “TIME” magazine. He has received numerous awards including the Artist as Activist Fellowship from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the 2018 Rappaport Prize. Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Her books include “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination.” This interview originally aired in June 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, June 27, 2019
Indigo Girls — No Separation: On Music And Transcendence
The folk rock duo Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have been making music for over 25 years. They’re known for their social activism on-stage and off, but long before they became the Indigo Girls, they were singing in church choirs. They see music as a continuum of human existence, intertwined with spiritual life in a way that can’t be pinned down. Amy Ray is a singer-songwriter who is one half of the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls. Her latest solo album, “Holler,” was released in September 2018. Emily Saliers is a singer-songwriter who is one half of the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls. She is also the co-author of “A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as a Spiritual Practice.” Her debut album, “Murmuration Nation,” was released in 2017. This interview originally aired in June 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, June 20, 2019
Jerry Colonna — Can You Really Bring Your Whole Self to Work?
We still work with the old idea that we should check the messy parts of ourselves at the door of our professional lives. But Jerry Colonna says doing so cuts us off from the source of our creativity. “The result is that our organizations are actually less productive, less imaginative; not just poor workplaces for individuals to be, but poor places for collaboration … and spontaneity and laughter and humor.” Colonna is a former venture capitalist who now coaches CEOs. He says undoing the old model starts with radical self-inquiry and asking ourselves questions like “Who is the person I’ve been all my life?” — and that it’s only after we sort through the material of our personal lives that we can become better leaders.
Thu, June 13, 2019
Richard Rohr — Growing Up Men
Men of all ages say Richard Rohr has given them a new way into spiritual depth and religious thought through his writing and retreats. This conversation with the Franciscan spiritual teacher delves into the expansive scope of his ideas: from male formation and what he calls “father hunger” to why contemplation is as magnetic to people now, including millennials, as it’s ever been. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan writer, teacher, and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His many books include “Falling Upward,” “Divine Dance,” and most recently, “The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe.” This interview originally aired in April 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, June 06, 2019
Jericho Brown — Small Truths and Other Surprises
The poet Jericho Brown reminds us to bear witness to the complexity of the human experience, to interrogate the proximity of violence to love, and to look and listen closer so that we might uncover the small truths and surprises in life. His presence is irreverent and magnetic, as the high school students who joined us for this conversation experienced firsthand at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Editor’s note: This interview discusses sexual violence and rape. Jericho Brown is Winship Research Professor in Creative Writing at Emory University and the director of Emory’s creative writing program. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book, “Please,” won the American Book Award, and his second book, “The New Testament,” won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His new collection of poetry is “The Tradition.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, May 30, 2019
Gregory Orr — Shaping Grief With Language
There are places in the human experience where ordinary language falls short but where poetry can find a way in. Gregory Orr has used lyric poetry to wrest gentle, healing, life-giving words from one of the most terrible traumas imaginable. On a hunting trip with his father at the age of 12, he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother. Since then, he says he has found consolation in words and story. “What’s beautiful about a poem is that you take on this chaos and this responsibility, and you shape it into order and make something of it,” he says. Gregory Orr taught English at the University of Virginia from 1975 to 2019 and founded its Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. His books of prose include “Poetry as Survival,” “A Primer for Poets,” and “Readers of Poetry.” He is the author of over 10 books of poetry including “How Beautiful the Beloved” and a forthcoming collection, “The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, May 23, 2019
Abraham Verghese and Denise Pope — How Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Today young people are trying to balance the question of “What do I want to do when I grow up?” with the question of “Who and how do I want to be in the world?” Physician and writer Abraham Verghese and education researcher Denise Pope argue that’s because the way we educate for success doesn’t support the creation of full, well-rounded humans. And they see the next generation challenging our cultural view of success by insisting that a deeply satisfying life is one filled with presence, vulnerability, and care for others. Abraham Verghese is a professor of medicine, vice chair of the Department of Medicine, and Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor at Stanford University. His books of fiction and non-fiction include “My Own Country,” “The Tennis Partner,” and the novel “Cutting for Stone.” He received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education and the co-founder of the non-profit organization Challenge Success. She’s the author of “Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students;” and a co-author of “Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, May 16, 2019
Rami Nashashibi and Lucas Johnson — Community Organizing as a Spiritual Practice
Community organizers Rami Nashashibi and Lucas Johnson have much to teach us about using love — the most reliable muscle of human transformation — as a practical public good. Nashashibi is the founder of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a force for social healing on Chicago’s South Side. Johnson is the newly-named executive director of The On Being Project’s Civil Conversations Project. In a world of division, they say despair is not an option — and that the work of social healing requires us to get “proximate to pain.” Rami Nashashibi is founder and executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) in Chicago. He was named a MacArthur fellow in 2017 and an Opus Prize laureate in 2018. Lucas Johnson is the executive director of The On Being Project’s Civil Conversations Project. He was previously international coordinator for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, a century-old peace-building organization. Lucas is also a community organizer, writer, and a minister in the American Baptist Churches. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, May 09, 2019
Sylvia Boorstein — What We Nurture
Sylvia Boorstein says spirituality doesn’t have to look like sitting down and meditating. A Jewish-Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, Boorstein says spirituality can be as simple as “folding the towels in a sweet way and talking kindly to the people in [your] family even though you’ve had a long day.” And she insists that nurturing our inner lives in this way is not a luxury but something we can do in the service of others — from our children to strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store. Sylvia Boorstein is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Her books include “That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Buddhist” and “Making Friends with the Present Moment.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, May 02, 2019
Atul Gawande — What Matters in the End
“What does a good day look like?” That question — when asked of both terminally-ill and healthy people — has transformed Atul Gawande’s practice of medicine. A citizen physician and writer, Gawande is on the frontiers of human agency and meaning in light of what modern medicine makes possible. For the millions of people who have read his book “Being Mortal,” he’s also opened new conversations about the ancient human question of death and what it might have to do with life. Atul Gawande practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He’s also Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He was recently named the CEO of Haven, a healthcare venture spearheaded by the leaders of Amazon, JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway. He’s been a staff writer for "The New Yorker" magazine since 1998 and is the author of four books, including “The Checklist Manifesto” and “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, April 25, 2019
Joanna Macy — A Wild Love For The World
A Buddhist philosopher of ecology, Joanna Macy says we are at a pivotal moment in history with the possibility to unravel or create a life-sustaining human society. Now entering her 90s, Macy has lived adventurously by any definition. She worked with the CIA in Cold War Europe and the Peace Corps in post-colonial India and was an early environmental activist. She brings a poetic and spiritual sensibility to her work that’s reflected in her translations of the early-20th-century poet Rainer Maria Rilke. We take that poetry as a lens on her wisdom on the great dramas of our time: ecological, political, personal. Joanna Macy is an activist, author, and a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology. Her 13 books include translations of Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, A Year with Rilke, and In Praise of Mortality. She is the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, a framework and workshop for personal and social change. Her new translation of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, together with Anita Barrows, is upcoming in 2020. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, April 18, 2019
Wangari Maathai — Marching With Trees
The late Wangari Maathai was a biologist, environmentalist, and the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She was born under British colonial occupation and schooled by Catholic missionaries. But when she looked back on her childhood near the end of her life, she realized her family’s Kikuyu culture had imparted her with an intuitive sense of environmental balance. Maathai was steadfast in her determination to fight for the twin issues of conservation and human rights — and planting trees was a symbol of defiance. Wangari Maathai founded the global Green Belt Movement, which has contributed today to the planting of over 52 million trees. She was the 2004 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Her books include the memoir “Unbowed” and “Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World.” She’s also one of the 100 heroic women featured in the book “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.” She died in 2011 at the age of 71. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, April 11, 2019
Pádraig Ó Tuama — Belonging Creates and Undoes Us
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and extraordinary healer in our world of fracture. He leads the Corrymeela community of Northern Ireland, a place that has offered refuge since the violent division that defined that country until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Ó Tuama and Corrymeela extend a quiet, generative, and joyful force far beyond their northern coast to people around the world. Over cups of tea and the experience of bringing people together, he says it becomes possible to talk with each other and be in the same room with the people we talk about. Pádraig Ó Tuama is the community leader of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. He finishes his five-year term in 2019. His books include a prayer book, “Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community,” a book of poetry, “Sorry for Your Troubles,” and a memoir, “In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Wed, April 03, 2019
Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, And Arnold Rampersad — W.E.B. Du Bois And The American Soul
A prolific writer on sociology, history, economics, and politics, W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most extraordinary minds of American and global history. His life traced an incredible arc; he was born three years after the end of the Civil War and died on the eve of the March on Washington. In 1903, he penned the famous line that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.” Du Bois was a formative voice for many of the people who gave us the Civil Rights Movement and for all of us navigating the still-unfolding, unfinished business of civil rights now. We bring his life and ideas into relief through three conversations with people who were inspired by him. Maya Angelou was a poet, educator, and activist. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. She is most well-known for her series of seven autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Elizabeth Alexander is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her books include Crave Radiance and her memoir, The Light of the World. Arnold Rampersad is emeritus professor of English at Stanford University and author of The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. Du Bois. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2010. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, March 28, 2019
‘Becoming Wise’ With Tools for the Art Of Living
Over the years, listeners have asked for short-form distillations of "On Being" — something to listen to while making a cup of tea. "Becoming Wise" is this offering, designed to help you reset your day and replenish your sense of yourself and the world, ten minutes at a time. A taste of the second season, which launched this week, curated from hundreds of big conversations Krista has had with wise and graceful lives — including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, astronomer Natalie Batalha, and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. To receive an episode every Monday morning, subscribe at onbeing.org or wherever podcasts are found.
Thu, March 21, 2019
Lawrence Kushner — Kabbalah and Everyday Mysticism
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is a long-time student and articulator of the mysteries and messages of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Kushner says mysticism tends to appear when religion — whatever the tradition — becomes too formal and logical. “The minute mysticism becomes permissible, acceptable, possible, it’s an immediate threat to organized religious structures,” he says. “Because what mysticism does is it gives everybody direct unmediated personal access to God.” He is influenced by the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem, who resurrected Kabbalah from obscurity in the 20th century and made it accessible to modern people. Lawrence Kushner is the Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. He served for 28 years as the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He has been an adjunct faculty member at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles and also a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered. His many books include God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know, Kabbalah: A Love Story, and I’m God; You’re Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, March 14, 2019
Sharon Olds — Odes to the *****
When the wise and whimsical Sharon Olds started writing poetry over 40 years ago, she explored the subjects that interested her most — like diaphragms. “The politeness and the prudity of the world I grew up in meant that there were things that were important to me and interesting to me, [but] I had never read a poem about,” she once said. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for her collection "Stag’s Leap" about walking through the end of a long marriage. Her most recent book, "Odes," pays homage to the human body and experience. Sharon Olds is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. She is the author of "Satan Says," "The Dead and the Living," "Odes," and "Stag’s Leap" — for which she also won the T.S. Eliot Prize. She helped found NYU’s outreach program for residents of Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island and for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, March 07, 2019
Jean Vanier — The Wisdom of Tenderness
A philosopher and Catholic social innovator, Jean Vanier is one of the great elders in our world today. The L’Arche movement, which he founded, centers around people with mental disabilities. The dozens of L’Arche communities around the world have become places of pilgrimage and are transformative for those involved and for the world around them. He has devoted his life to the practical application of Christianity’s most paradoxical teachings — that there’s power in humility, strength in weakness, and light in the darkness of human existence. Jean Vanier is a philosopher and the founder of L'Arche. He lives full-time in the original community in Trosly-Breuil, France. He's also the recipient of the 2015 Templeton Prize. His books include "Befriending the Stranger," "An Ark for the Poor," and "A Cry is Heard: My Path to Peace." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, February 28, 2019
Teju Cole — Sitting Together in the Dark
Writer and photographer Teju Cole says he is “intrigued by the continuity of places, by the singing line that connects them all.” He attends to the border, overlap and interplay of things — from Brahms and Baldwin to daily technologies like Google. To delve into his mind and his multiple arts is to meet this world with creative raw materials for enduring truth and quiet hope. Teju Cole is a photography critic for The New York Times and the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard. His books are Blind Spot, a book of photography and writing; a collection of essays, Known and Strange Things; and two novels: Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, February 21, 2019
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn — Truth, Beauty, Banjo
Béla Fleck is one of the greatest living banjo players in the world. He’s followed what many experience as this quintessential American roots instrument back to its roots in Africa, and he’s taken it where no banjo has gone before. Abigail Washburn is a celebrated banjo player and singer, both in English and Chinese. These two are partners in music and in life — recovering something ancient and deeply American all at once, bringing both beauty and meaning to what they play and how they live. Béla Fleck has recorded over 40 albums, most famously with The Flecktones and New Grass Revival. His albums include Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, UFO Tofu, and Rocket Science. His first full album collaboration with Abigail Washburn, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, was awarded the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. Their most recent album is Echo in the Valley. Abigail Washburn is a clawhammer banjo player and singer. Her albums include Song of the Traveling Daughter, City of Refuge, and The Sparrow Quartet EP. She is a Carolina Performing Arts DisTil Fellow, former TED Fellow, and was the first U.S.-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, February 14, 2019
Richard Davidson — A Neuroscientist on Love and Learning
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson is one of the central people who’s helped us begin to see inside our brains. His work has illuminated the rich interplay between things we saw as separate not that long ago: body, mind, spirit, emotion, behavior, and genetics. Richard is applying what he’s learning about imparting qualities of character — like kindness and practical love — in lives and in classrooms. This live conversation was recorded at the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa, California. Richard Davidson is the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He founded and directs the Center for Healthy Minds there. He is the co-author of "The Emotional Life of Your Brain" and "Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body." He was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine in 2017. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, February 07, 2019
Maria Popova — Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age
She has called Brain Pickings, her invention and labor of love, a “human-powered discovery engine for interestingness.” What Maria Popova really delivers, to hundreds of thousands of people each day, is wisdom of the old-fashioned sort, presented in new-fashioned digital ways. She cross-pollinates — between philosophy and design, physics and poetry, the intellectual and the experiential. We explore her gleanings on what it means to lead a good life — intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. Maria Popova is the creator and presence behind BrainPickings.org, which is included in the Library of Congress’s permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials. She is the author of “Figuring” and hosts “The Universe in Verse” — an annual celebration of science through poetry — at the interdisciplinary cultural institute Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, January 31, 2019
Daniel Kahneman — Why We Contradict Ourselves and Confound Each Other
With his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman emerged as one of the most intriguing voices on the complexity of human thought and behavior. He is a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics for helping to create the field of behavioral economics — and is a self-described “constant worrier.” It’s fun, helpful, and more than a little unnerving to apply his insights into why we think and act the way we do in this moment of social and political tumult. Daniel Kahneman is best known for his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” He’s the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, professor of psychology and public affairs emeritus at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, and a fellow of the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Mon, January 21, 2019
Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach — Un-Becoming
The topic of the day was “courage,” with two singular, admired women (who happen to be married to each other): soccer icon Abby Wambach and writer/philanthropist Glennon Doyle. Abby is an Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion. Glennon entered the American imagination with the label “Christian mommy blogger.” Now she ignites millions of followers through initiatives like “Love Flash Mobs,” as she says, “to turn heartbreak into action.” What follows is a conversation about courage that is both serious and playful, as it turns up in their lives apart and together — from addiction to social activism to blended family parenting. Glennon Doyle is the author of the bestselling books "Love Warrior" and "Carry On, Warrior." She is also the founder and president of Together Rising, a nonprofit that has raised more than $15 million for women and children in crisis. Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, and six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of Year Award. Her books include "Forward: A Memoir" and the forthcoming "WOLFPACK." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, January 17, 2019
Mary Oliver — Listening to the World
Mary Oliver was one of our greatest and most beloved poets. She is often quoted by people across ages and backgrounds — and it’s fitting, since she described poetry as a sacred community ritual. “When you write a poem, you write it for anybody and everybody,” she said. Mary died on January 17, 2019, at the age of 83. She was a prolific and decorated poet, whose honors included the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In this 2015 conversation — one of the rare interviews she granted during her lifetime — she discussed the wisdom of the world, the salvation of poetry, and the life behind her writing. Mary Oliver published over 25 books of poetry and prose, including "Dream Work," "A Thousand Mornings," and "A Poetry Handbook." She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 for her book "American Primitive." Her final work, "Devotions," is a curated collection of poetry from her more than 50-year career. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Tue, January 08, 2019
Claudia Rankine — How Can I Say This So We Can Stay in This Car Together?
The poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine says every conversation about race doesn’t need to be about racism. But she says all of us — and especially white people — need to find a way to talk about it, even when it gets uncomfortable. Her bestselling book, "Citizen: An American Lyric," catalogued the painful daily experiences of lived racism for people of color. Claudia models how it’s possible to bring that reality into the open — not to fight, but to draw closer. And she shows how we can do this with everyone, from our intimate friends to strangers on airplanes. Claudia Rankine is the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University and founder of The Racial Imaginary Institute. She is the author of five collections of poetry including "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely." Her plays include "The Provenance of Beauty" and "The White Card." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, January 03, 2019
Maira Kalman — Daily Things To Fall In Love With
Writer and illustrator Maira Kalman is well known for her books for children and adults, her love of dogs, and her “New Yorker” covers. Her words and pictures bring life’s intrinsic quirkiness and whimsy into relief right alongside life’s intrinsic seriousness. As a storyteller, she is contemplative and inspired by the stuff of daily life — from fluffy white meringues to well-worn chairs. “There’s never a lack of things to look at,” she says. “And there’s never a lack of time not to talk.” Maira Kalman is the author and illustrator of over 20 books for adults and children. She is well known for her “New York Times” blogs that have become books like “And the Pursuit of Happiness” and “The Principles of Uncertainty.” Find the transcript for this show at http://onbeing.org/programs/maira-kalman-daily-things-to-fall-in-love-with-jan2019/#transcript
Fri, December 21, 2018
David Whyte – The Conversational Nature Of Reality
The poet-philosopher. To ask beautiful questions in unbeautiful moments. “Your great mistake is to act the drama / as if you were alone.” Rest as the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. The underlying meaning of everyday words. “Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet / confinement of your aloneness / to learn / anything or anyone / that does not bring you alive / is too small for you.” David Whyte is a poet and philosopher who believes in the power of a “beautiful question” amid the drama of work as well as the drama of life, and the ways the two overlap. He shared a deep friendship with the late Irish philosopher John O’Donohue. They were, David Whyte says, like “two bookends.” More recently, he’s written about the consolation, nourishment, and underlying meaning of everyday words. David Whyte is a poet and an associate fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America” and “Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.” His new book of poetry is “The Bell and the Blackbird.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, December 20, 2018
Walter Brueggemann — The Prophetic Imagination
The great scholar and preacher. “The task is reframing so that we can re-experience the social realities that are right in front of us, from a different angle.” Prophets are also always poets. “A society finally cannot live without the quality of mercy.” Walter Brueggemann is one of the world’s great teachers about the prophets who both anchor the Hebrew Bible and have transcended it across history. He translates their imagination from the chaos of ancient times to our own. He somehow also embodies this tradition’s fearless truth-telling together with fierce hope - and how it conveys ideas with disarming language. “The task is reframing,” he says, “so that we can re-experience the social realities that are right in front of us, from a different angle.” Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia. He is the author of “The Prophetic Imagination,” “Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann,” and “Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, December 13, 2018
Pauline Boss — The Myth of Closure
The family therapist who created the field of “ambiguous loss” — loss without closure. Complicated grief: parents, divorce, addiction, dementia, aging. “You love somebody. And when they're lost, you still care about them. You can't just turn it off.” There is no such thing as closure. In fact, Pauline Boss says, the idea of closure leads us astray. It’s a myth we need to put aside, like the idea we’ve accepted that grief has five linear stages and we come out the other side done with it. She coined the term “ambiguous loss,” creating a new field in family therapy and psychology. She has wisdom for the complicated griefs and losses in all of our lives and for how we best approach the losses of others. Pauline Boss is Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss, Loving Someone Who Has Dementia, and Ambiguous Loss. She has also pioneered a global online course with the University of Minnesota called “Ambiguous Loss: Its Meaning and Application.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, December 06, 2018
Rebecca Traister and Avi Klein — #MeToo Through a Solutions Lens
The feminist journalist and the psychotherapist. “It’s partners and lovers and spouses…fathers and brothers and sons and friends.” The difference between apology and forgiveness. “Men are used to trying to fix things.” Trauma, and also healing. What we are naming with the impetus of #MeToo is, at best, an opening to a long-term cultural reckoning to grow up humanity; to make our society more whole. We explore this with psychotherapist Avi Klein, who works with men and couples, and feminist journalist Rebecca Traister. In a room full of journalists, at the invitation of the Solutions Journalism Network, we explored how to build the spaces, the imaginative muscle, and the pragmatic forms to support healing for women and men, now and in time. Rebecca Traister is a writer for “New York Magazine” and a contributing editor at “Elle.” She is the author of “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “All the Single Ladies,” and “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.” Avi Klein is a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker. He practices in Manhattan. His 2018 “New York Times” Op-Ed piece is titled “What Men Say About #MeToo in Therapy.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, November 29, 2018
Pico Iyer — The Urgency of Slowing Down
Absorption as a definition of happiness. "To bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world." Traveling not in order to move around but in order to be moved. His friend Leonard Cohen. Stillness & silence as a recharging station for the soul. Pico Iyer is one of our most eloquent explorers of what he calls the "inner world" — in himself and in the 21st century world at large. The journalist and novelist travels the globe from Ethiopia to North Korea and lives in Japan. But he also experiences a remote Benedictine hermitage as his second home, retreating there many times each year. In this intimate conversation, we explore the discoveries he's making and his practice of "the art of stillness." Pico Iyer is a journalist and writer. He's written over a dozen books including "The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home," "The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama," and "The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere." He has two books on Japan upcoming in 2019: "Autumn Light" and "A Beginner’s Guide to Japan." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Tue, November 20, 2018
Rachel Naomi Remen — The Difference Between Fixing and Healing
The wise physician and lyrical author. How our losses help us to live. Perfection as the booby prize in life. "Wholeness is never lost, it is only forgotten." "Stories are the flesh we put on the bones of the facts of our lives." Listening generously. Rachel Naomi Remen’s lifelong struggle with Crohn’s disease has shaped her practice of medicine, and she in turn is helping to reshape the art of healing. "The way we deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else," she says. And each of us, with our wounds and our flaws, has exactly what’s needed to help repair the part of the world that we can see and touch. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (RISHI), clinical professor of family medicine at UCSF School of Medicine, and professor of family medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University. Her beloved books "Kitchen Table Wisdom" and "My Grandfather's Blessings" have been translated into 24 languages. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, November 15, 2018
Anand Giridharadas — When the Market Is Our Only Language
We Americans revere the creation of wealth. Anand Giridharadas wants us to examine this and how it shapes our life together. This is a challenging conversation but a generative one: about the implicit moral equations behind a notion like "win-win" — and the moral compromises in a cultural consensus we’ve reached, without reflecting on it, about what and who can save us. Anand Giridharadas is a journalist and writer. He is a former columnist and foreign correspondent for "The New York Times" and a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He is the author of "India Calling," "The True American," and "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, November 08, 2018
James Doty — The Magic Shop of the Brain
A brain surgeon. “The brain is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.” The science of compassion. The baggage of evolution. The two way street of “neural innovation that comes from the brain stem into the heart.” Brain surgeon James Doty is on the cutting edge of our knowledge of the brain and the heart: how they talk to each other; what compassion means in the body and in action; and how we can reshape our lives and perhaps our species through the scientific and human understanding we are now gaining. James Doty is a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and founding director of CCARE, the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. His book is "Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart." He is also the senior editor of the "Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science." Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Wed, October 31, 2018
Tracy K. Smith — love is a language / Few practice, but all, or near all speak
The U.S. Poet Laureate.“There’s this whole other narrative unfolding.” How history “which once felt so remote, feels closer and active and unresolved.” Listening for the spaces that are under-imagined. “Little leaps of imagination” that can restore us. Tracy K. Smith has a deep interest in “the kind of silence that yields clarity” and “the way our voices sound when we dip below the decibel level of politics.” She’s a welcome voice on the little leaps of the imagination that can restore us. She’s spent the past year traversing our country, listening for all of this and drawing it forth as the U.S. Poet Laureate. Krista spoke with her at the invitation of New York’s B’nai Jeshurun synagogue, which has been in communal exploration on creating a just and redeemed social fabric. Tracy K. Smith is the 22nd United States Poet Laureate and the director of Princeton University’s creative writing program. Her works of poetry include include "Wade in the Water," "Life on Mars," and "Duende." Her memoir is "Ordinary Light." She’s written the introduction to a new book, "American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time," and she’s launching a new podcast called The Slowdown. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, October 25, 2018
Mirabai Bush — Contemplation, Life, and Work
Co-creator of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. “There is a calming, quieting, centering practice that leads to insight in every tradition.” Contemplative practice and social change. Mindful emailing. Creative, relational, ritual, cyclical. Mirabai Bush works at an emerging 21st century intersection of industry, social healing, and diverse contemplative practices. Raised Catholic with Joan of Arc as her hero, she is one of the people who brought Buddhism to the West from India in the 1970s. She is called in to work with educators and judges, social activists and soldiers. She helped create Google’s popular employee program, Search Inside Yourself. Mirabai Bush’s life tells a fascinating narrative of our time: the rediscovery of contemplative practices, in many forms and from many traditions, in the secular thick of modern culture. Mirabai Bush co-founded the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. She is the author of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education and has written two books with Ram Dass: Compassion in Action and Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, October 18, 2018
Arlie Hochschild — The Deep Stories of Our Time
A creator of the field of the sociology of emotion. Treating emotion seriously in our life together. “I could see what they couldn’t see but not what I couldn’t see.” Our stories as “felt” not merely factual. Caring is not the same as capitulating. One of the voices many have been turning to in recent years is Arlie Hochschild. She helped create the field of the sociology of emotion — our stories as “felt” rather than merely factual. When she published her book, "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right," in the fall of 2016, it felt like she had chronicled the human dynamics that have now come to upend American culture. It was based on five years of friendship and research in Tea Party country at that movement’s height, far from her home in Berkeley, California. Her understanding of emotion in society and politics feels even more important at this juncture. So does the reflective, self-critical sensibility this experience gave Arlie Hochschild on her own liberal instincts. Caring, she says, is not the same as capitulating. Arlie Hochschild is professor emerita in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of nine books including "The Managed Heart," "The Second Shift," and "Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right," a finalist for the National Book Award. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, October 11, 2018
Sally Kohn and Erick Erickson — Relationship Across Rupture
What happens when you call your Internet trolls. The peril of forgetting our next door neighbors. “You don’t have to love people to not hate them.” “People believe things that are mutually contradictory; I think we all do. I know I do.” — Erick Erickson Earlier this year, the University of Montana invited On Being to attempt an outside the box civil conversation between two political pundits on contrasting ends of the U.S. political spectrum. It became a sold-out, public event in the spirit of Montana’s Senator Mike Mansfield, who famously modeled integrity, courage, and humility across the partisan aisle in the tumult of 1960s and 70s. Sally Kohn and Erick Erickson are both controversial, lightning-rod figures, yet neither of them fits neatly into a partisan mold. The reaction of the youngest people in the room is what compelled us to put this on the air. They said they had not witnessed or imagined a political conversation like this possible: one marked at once by bedrock difference — and good will, humor, and a willingness to bring our questions as well as our arguments, our humanity as well as our positions, into the room, if only for an evening. Sally Kohn is a progressive columnist and political commentator for CNN. She’s also contributed to Fox News. She hosts the podcast, State of Resistance. She’s the author of The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity. Erick Erickson is editor of the conservative blog, The Resurgent, host of The Erick Erickson Show on WSB Radio in Atlanta, and contributor to Fox News. He’s also contributed to CNN. He’s the author of Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, October 04, 2018
Layli Long Soldier — The Freedom of Real Apologies
The Oglala Lakota poet. “I wanted as much as possible to avoid this nostalgic portraiture of a Native life.” The reward and joy of patience. The difference between guilt, shame, and freedom from denial. When apologies are done well. Layli Long Soldier is a writer, a mother, a citizen of the United States, and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. She has a way of opening up this part of her life, and of American life, to inspire self-searching and tenderness. Her award-winning first book of poetry, WHEREAS, is a response to the U.S. government’s official apology to Native peoples in 2009, which was done so quietly, with no ceremony, that it was practically a secret. Layli Long Soldier offers entry points for us all — to events that are not merely about the past, and to the freedom real apologies might bring. Layli Long Soldier is the recipient of the 2015 Lannan Fellowship for Poetry and a 2015 National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Her first book of poetry, WHEREAS, is a winner of the multiple awards including the Whiting Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, September 27, 2018
Frances Kissling — What Is Good in the Position of the Other
From abortion activist to bridge person. Questions to break out of intractable polarization. Wisdom beyond the news cycle. “What is it in your own position that gives you trouble? What is it in the position of the other that you are attracted to?” The focus of our national fight over abortion may change, but this hasn’t changed for decades: We collapse this most intimate and complex of human dilemmas to two sides. We’ve been looking yet again for wisdom away from the turbulent news cycle and keep returning to this conversation Krista had with Frances Kissling. She is a “bridge person” in the abortion debate: a long-time pro-choice activist who has sought to come into relationship with her political opposites. Now she’s controversial on both sides, but speaks from a place that many of us would like to map out between the poles. She has experienced something more powerful, as she tells it, than defining common ground — and this has lessons for other issues in our common life and our struggles with people with whom we disagree the most. Frances Kissling is president of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy. She was the president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Thu, September 20, 2018
Seth Godin — Life, the Internet, and Everything
“We are flying too low. We built this universe, this technology, these connections, this society, and all we can do with it is make junk? All we can do with it is put on stupid entertainments? I'm not buying it.” Seth Godin is wise and infectiously curious about life, the internet, and everything. He was one of the first people to name the “connection economy.” And even as we’re seeing its dark side, he helps us hold on to the highest human potential the digital age still calls us to. His daily blog is indispensable reading for many of us. He’s a long-time mentor to Krista. This interview happened in 2012. Seth now has a new podcast, "Akimbo," and a new book coming out, "This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See." Seth Godin writes the wildly popular daily, Seth’s Blog. He’s the author of many best-selling books, online and in print, including "Purple Cow," "The Dip," and "Linchpin." In 2018 he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Fri, August 17, 2018
Eugene Peterson — The Bible, Poetry, and Active Imagination
"Prayers are tools not for doing or getting but for being and becoming." These are words of the legendary pastor and writer Eugene Peterson, whose biblical imagination has formed generations of preachers. At the back of the church he led for nearly three decades, you’d be likely to find well-worn copies of books by Wallace Stegner or Denise Levertov. Frustrated with the unimaginative way he found his congregants treating their Bibles, he translated it himself, and that translation has sold millions of copies around the world. Eugene Peterson’s down-to-earth faith hinges on a love of metaphor and a commitment to the Bible’s poetry as what keeps it alive to the world.
Thu, August 16, 2018
Alan Rabinowitz — We Are All Wildlife
How to get to the heart of the human experience without speaking? This question drove Alan Rabinowitz, after a childhood with a severe stutter, to become a wildlife biologist and explorer — “the Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation.” He died this month at age 64. He was known for his work with big cats, his discovery of new animal species, and for documenting human cultures believed to be lost. Alan Rabinowitz took our understanding of the animal-human bond to new places, while also being wise about the wilderness of the human experience.
Wed, August 15, 2018
Mahzarin Banaji — The Mind Is a Difference-Seeking Machine
The science of implicit bias is one of the most promising fields for animating the human change that makes social change possible. The social psychologist Mahzarin Banaji is one of its primary architects. She understands the mind as a “difference-seeking machine” that helps us order and navigate the overwhelming complexity of reality. But this gift also creates blind spots and biases as we fill in what we don’t know with the limits of what we do know. This is science that takes our grappling with difference out of the realm of guilt and into the realm of transformative good.
Thu, August 09, 2018
Joe Carter — The Spirituals
An exuberant experience of conversation and singing. There are nearly 5,000 spirituals in existence. Their organizing concept is not the melody of Europe, but the rhythm of Africa. They were composed by slaves, bards whose names we will never know, and yet gave rise to gospel, jazz, blues, and hip-hop. Joe Carter lived and breathed the universal appeal and hidden stories, meanings, and hope in what were originally called “sorrow songs.” This was one of our first weekly shows, and it’s still one of our most beloved.
Thu, August 02, 2018
Alain de Botton — The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships
What if the first question we asked on a date were, "How are you crazy? I'm crazy like this"? Philosopher and writer Alain de Botton's essay "Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person" was one of the most-read articles in The New York Times in recent years. As people and as a culture, he says, we would be much saner and happier if we reexamined our very view of love. Nowhere do we realistically teach ourselves and our children how love deepens and stumbles, survives and evolves over time, and how that process has much more to do with ourselves than with what is right or wrong about our partner. The real work of love is not in the falling, but in what comes after.
Thu, July 26, 2018
Cory Booker — Civic Spiritual Evolution
We don’t really reward or allow our politicians, good or bad, to be searching, or to change their minds and grow — to admit their human frailty. So it’s surprising to hear Cory Booker say that the best thing that’s happened to him is “being broken, time and time again.” He’s taken flack for talking about politics as “manifesting love.” He speaks with Krista about the inadequacy of tolerance, strengthening the “muscle” of hope, and making your bed as a spiritual practice.
Thu, July 19, 2018
Robin Wall Kimmerer — The Intelligence In All Kinds Of Life
“The rocks are beyond slow, beyond strong, and yet yielding to a soft green breath as powerful as a glacier, the mosses wearing away their surfaces, grain by grain bringing them slowly back to sand. There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents.” This is how Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about moss, which she studies as a botanist and bryologist. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she joins science’s ability to “polish the art of seeing” with her personal, civilizational lineage of “listening” to plant life — heeding the languages of the natural world. This gives her a grammar not of feminine and masculine but of animate and inanimate — a way into the vitality and intelligence of plant life that science is now also seeing. It opens a new way for us to reimagine a natural reciprocity with the world around us as “a generative and creative way to be a human in the world.”
Thu, July 12, 2018
Luis Alberto Urrea — What Borders Are Really About, and What We Do With Them
A border as liminal space, an imposed metaphor on the family, a place of crossing, a place of pressure. “There is no them. There is only us.” The fullness of what it is to be Mexican (and American). Evolving into enjoying each other more. The wonderful writer Luis Alberto Urrea says that a deep truth of our time is that “we miss each other.” We have this drive to erect barriers between ourselves and yet this makes us a little crazy. He is singularly wise about the deep meaning and the problem of borders. The Mexican-American border, as he likes to say, ran straight through his parents’ Mexican-American marriage and divorce. His works of fiction and non-fiction confuse every dehumanizing caricature of Mexicans — and of U.S. border guards. The possibility of our time, as he lives and witnesses with his writing, is to evolve the old melting pot to the 21st-century richness of “us” — with all the mess and necessary humor required. Luis Alberto Urrea is an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published in nearly every genre, including nonfiction, memoir, short stories, historical novels, poetry, and even an award-winning mystery story, and has been called a “literary badass.” His many books include Into the Beautiful North, The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, The Tijuana Book of the Dead and The House of Broken Angels.
Tue, July 03, 2018
Yo-Yo Ma — Music Happens Between the Notes
The great cellist shares his philosophy of living. Turning fear into joy. Performance as hospitality and communal witnessing. Beauty as a transfer of life. Sound as visual. How music makes us better. And being a firm believer in accidental meetings.
Thu, June 21, 2018
The Moral World in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt for Now — Lyndsey Stonebridge
Nothing is helping us more right now, as we watch human tragedies unfold on the U.S.-Mexican border and elsewhere, than a conversation Krista had last year with literary historian Lyndsey Stonebridge — on thinking and friendship in dark times. She applies the moral clarity of the 20th-century philosopher Hannah Arendt to now — an invitation to dwell on the human essence of events we analyze as political and economic. Our dramas of exile and displacement are existential, she says — about who we will all be as people and political community. What Arendt called the “banality of evil” was at root an inability to hear another voice.
Thu, June 07, 2018
America Ferrera And John Paul Lederach — How Change Happens, In Generational Time
“Our discomfort and our grappling is not a sign of failure,” America Ferrera says, “it’s a sign that we’re living at the edge of our imaginations.” She is a culture-shifting artist. John Paul Lederach is one of our greatest living architects of social transformation. From the inaugural On Being Gathering, a revelatory, joyous exploration of the ingredients of social courage — and how change really happens in generational time.
Thu, May 31, 2018
Maria Shriver — Finding My “I Am”
Maria Shriver’s life is often summarized in fairy tale terms. A child of the Kennedy clan in the Camelot aura of the early 1960s. Daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, and Sargent Shriver, who helped found the Peace Corps. An esteemed broadcast journalist. First lady of California. This hour, she opens up about having a personal history that is also public history — and how deceptive the appearance of glamour can be. We experience the legendary toughness of the women in Maria Shriver’s family — but also the hard-won tenderness and wisdom with which she has come to raise her own voice.
Thu, May 24, 2018
Elizabeth Gilbert — Choosing Curiosity Over Fear
Her name is synonymous with her fantastically best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love. But through the disorienting process of becoming a celebrity, Elizabeth Gilbert has also reflected deeply on the gift and challenge of inhabiting a creative life. Creativity, as she defines it, is about choosing curiosity over fear — not to be confused with the more familiar trope to "follow your passion,” but rather as something accessible to us all and good for our life together.
Thu, May 17, 2018
How Friendship and Quiet Conversations Transformed a White Nationalist
Derek Black grew up the heir apparent of a prominent white nationalist family. David Duke was his godfather. When Derek was 11, he designed the kids’ page for what is known as the first major internet hate site, created by his father. But after his ideology was outed in college, one of the only Orthodox Jews on campus — Matthew Stevenson — invited Derek to his weekly Shabbat dinners. What happened over the next two years, as the two of them became friends, is a roadmap for navigating some of the hardest territory of our time.
Thu, May 10, 2018
john a. powell — Opening to the Question of Belonging
“Race is a little bit like gravity,” john powell says: experienced by all, understood by few. He is a refreshing, redemptive thinker who counsels all kinds of people and projects on the front lines of our present racial longings. Race is relational, he reminds us. It’s as much about whiteness as about color. He takes new learnings from the science of the brain as forms of everyday power. “We don't have to imagine doing things one at a time,” he says. “It's not, ‘how do we get there?’ It's, ‘how do we live?’”
Mon, May 07, 2018
Introducing The On Being Project
What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? Who will we be to each other? These questions have been at the heart of On Being from the start — as it grew from a radio project into a thriving public space for delving into the big questions of our lives together. As we begin a new chapter, the leadership team — CEO and founder Krista Tippett, executive producer Lily Percy, COO Erinn Farrell, and the executive director of the new Impact Lab, Casper ter Kuile — sits down to update you on what’s next for The On Being Project.
Thu, May 03, 2018
Nature, Joy, and Human Becoming
"The sudden passionate happiness which the natural world can occasionally trigger in us,” Michael McCarthy writes, “may well be the most serious business of all." He is a naturalist and journalist, and this is his delightful and galvanizing call — that we can stop relying on the immobilizing language of statistics and take up our joy in the natural world as our civilizational defense of it. With a perspective equally infused by science, reportage, and poetry, he reminds us that the natural world is where we evolved, where we found our metaphors and similes, and it is the resting place for our psyches.
Wed, April 25, 2018
Carlo Rovelli — All Reality Is Interaction
“We don't understand the world as made by stones — by things. We understand the world made by kisses, or things like kisses: happenings.” Carlo Rovelli offers vast, complex ideas beyond most of our imagining — "quanta," "grains of space," “time and the heat of black holes" — and condenses them into spare, beautiful words that render them newly explicable and moving. He is the scientist behind the global bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, and for him, all of reality is interaction — an everyday truth as scientific as it is philosophical and political. His physicist’s way of seeing the world helps make sense of what he calls “the huge wave of happenings” that is the human self.
Thu, April 19, 2018
angel Kyodo williams — The World Is Our Field of Practice
She’s one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing. angel Kyodo williams is an esteemed Zen priest and the second black woman ever recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage. To sink into conversation with her is to imagine and nourish a transformative potential of this moment towards human wholeness.
Thu, April 12, 2018
The Vitality of Ordinary Things
To reassert the liveliness of ordinary things, precisely in the face of what is hardest and most broken in life and society — this has been Michael Longley’s gift to Northern Ireland as one of its foremost living poets. He is a voice for all of us now, wise and winsome about the force of words in a society that has moved away from sectarianism in living memory. The Good Friday Agreement was signed 20 years ago this month, and social healing is ongoing work to this day.
Wed, April 04, 2018
This Is Your Brain on Sex
Anthropologist Helen Fisher explores the biological workings of our intimate passions, the brew of chemicals, hormones, and neurotransmitters that make the thrilling and sometimes treacherous realms of love and sex. In the research she does for match.com and her TED Talks that have been viewed by millions of people, she wields science as an entertaining, if sobering, lens on what feel like the most meaningful encounters of our lives. In this deeply personal conversation, she shows how it is possible to take on this knowledge as a form of wisdom and power.
Thu, March 29, 2018
Maria Popova and Natalie Batalha — Cosmic Imagining, Civic Pondering
A literary thinker with a “telescopic view of time”; an astrophysicist with an eye to “cultural evolution towards good.” What unfolds between these two is joyous, dynamic, and unexpectedly vulnerable — rich with cosmic imagining, civic pondering, and even some fresh definitions of the soul. A live taping from the inaugural On Being Gathering at the 1440 Multiversity in California.
Thu, March 22, 2018
The Soul in Depression
We’re fluent in the languages of psychology and medication, but the word “depression” does not do justice to this human experience. Depression is also spiritual territory. It is a shadow side of human vitality and as such teaches us about vitality. And what if depression is possible for the same reason that love is possible?
Thu, March 15, 2018
Naomi Shihab Nye — Your Life Is A Poem
“When you're in a very quiet place, when you're remembering, when you're savoring an image, when you're allowing your mind calmly to leap from one thought to another, that's a poem.” Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Kindness” has traveled around the world. She grew up between Ferguson, Missouri, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. She insists that language must be a way out of cycles of animosity. And she’d have us notice “petite discoveries” that embolden us to choose human nourishment over division. “Before you know what kindness really is / you must lose things.”
Thu, March 08, 2018
Nathalie Joachim — Song of Haiti’s Women
Flutist and vocalist Nathalie Joachim is a magnetic voice of one of the unexpected aspects of our globalized world — new generations reclaiming and falling in love anew with the places their parents left. In an odyssey through songs of women, Nathalie Joachim is immersing in Haiti’s ecological and political traumas, as well as its beauty and its promise. She is co-founder of the urban art pop duo Flutronix and is based in Brooklyn.
Thu, March 01, 2018
Stephen Batchelor — Wondrous Doubt
Stephen Batchelor’s secular Buddhism speaks to the mystery and vitality of spiritual life in every form. For him, secularism opens to doubt and questioning as a radical basis for spiritual life. Above all, he understands Buddhism without transcendent beliefs like karma or reincarnation to become something urgent to do, not to believe in.
Wed, February 14, 2018
Sylvia Earle — Her Deepness
Oceanographer Sylvia Earle was the first person to walk solo on the bottom of the sea, under a quarter mile of water. She has watched humanity’s enduring fascination with “outer space” while she has delighted in “inner space” — the alien and increasingly endangered worlds beneath earth’s waters. These frontiers, as Sylvia Earle points out, are our very life-support system. She takes us inside the knowledge she’s gathered from a lifetime of research and literally swimming with sharks.
Wed, February 14, 2018
Rubén Blades, Ashley C. Ford, David Greene, et al. — This Movie Changed Me
Movies delight and inspire and repel. They’re places the big questions we take up at On Being land in the heart of our lives. They change our lives and our life together. Get out the popcorn for this show, and immerse yourself in film scores and iconic movie moments — with David Greene on how Star Wars changed him, Ashley C. Ford on The Nightmare Before Christmas, Rubén Blades on the 1943 noir Western The Ox-Bow Incident, and more.
Thu, February 08, 2018
Brené Brown — Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart
“When we’re our best selves with each other, I don’t think that’s what’s possible between people; I believe that’s what’s true between people.” A wise thinker and writer, and a sought out teacher by leaders in many fields, Brené Brown is turning her attention ever more to how we walked into the crisis of our life together and how we can move beyond it. Our belonging to one another across every social divide, she says, can never be lost. But it can be forgotten.
Thu, February 01, 2018
Sarah Bassin and Abdullah Antepli — Holy Envy
The tensions of our time are well-known. But there are stories that are not being told, because they are not violent and not shouting to be heard. One of them is that all over this country, synagogues and mosques, Muslims and Jews, have been coming to know one another. There is friendship. There are initiatives that are patiently, and at human scale, planting the seeds for new realities across generational time. As part of the Civil Conversations Project, a live conversation at the Union for Reform Judaism’s General Assembly in Boston between Imam Abdullah Antepli and Rabbi Sarah Bassin.
Wed, January 24, 2018
Mary Karr — Astonished by the Human Comedy
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” Mary Karr has a captivating ability to give voice to what is funny in life’s most heartbreaking moments. She is beloved for her salty memoirs in which she traces her harrowing childhood in southeast Texas — with a mother who once tried to kill her with a butcher’s knife and her own adult struggles with alcoholism and breakdown. Mary Karr embodies this wryness and wildness in her lesser-known spiritual practice as a devout Catholic — an unexpected move she made in mid-life.
Thu, January 18, 2018
Kevin Kelly — The Universe Is A Question
“It’s very likely that the universe is really a kind of a question, rather than the answer to anything,” says philosopher technologist Kevin Kelly. He was the founding editor of WIRED and is an original thinker on shaping the character and spiritual meaning of technology. He says our role as good askers of questions will remain the most important contribution of our species in a coming world of AI.
Thu, January 11, 2018
Isabel Wilkerson — The Heart Is the Last Frontier
Go to the doctor and they won’t begin to treat you without taking your history — and not just yours, but that of your parents and grandparents before you. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson points this out as she reflects on her epic work of narrative non-fiction, The Warmth of Other Suns. She’s immersed herself in the stories of the Great Migration, the diaspora of six million African Americans to the north of the U.S. in the 20th century. It’s a carrier of untold histories and truths that help make sense of human and social challenges newly visible at the heart of our life together.
Thu, January 04, 2018
Christian Wiman — How Does One Remember God?
The poet Christian Wiman is giving voice to the hunger and challenge of being religious now. He had a charismatic Texas Christian upbringing, and was later agnostic. He became actively religious again as he found love in his mid 30s, and was diagnosed with cancer. He’s written, “How does one remember God, reach for God, realize God in the midst of one’s life if one is constantly being overwhelmed by that life?”
Thu, December 21, 2017
Claire Danes, Ellen Burstyn, Tracy K. Smith, et al. — Stories About Mystery
We often find ourselves talking to poets and writers about the vivid connections between art and faith. This special hour came out of a live collaboration between On Being and Selected Shorts at Symphony Space in New York. Claire Danes, Ellen Burstyn, Julie White, and U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith joined us with stories and poems about meaning and mystery.
Wed, December 20, 2017
David Steindl-Rast — Anatomy of Gratitude
Mysticism is the birthright of every human being, says Br. David Steindl-Rast. He speaks of the anatomy and practice of gratitude as full-blooded, reality-based, and redeeming. Now in his 90s, he has lived through a world war, the end of an empire, and the fascist takeover of his country. He was an early pioneer, together with Thomas Merton, of dialogue between Christian and Buddhist monastics. He’s also given a TED talk, viewed over six million times, on the subject of gratitude — a practice increasingly interrogated by scientists and physicians as a key to human well-being.
Thu, December 07, 2017
Adam Gopnik — Practicing Doubt, Redrawing Faith
The wise and lyrical writer Adam Gopnik muses on the ironies of spiritual life in a secular age through the lens of his many fascinations — from parenting, to the arts, to Darwin. He touches on all these things in a conversation inspired by his foreword to "The Good Book," in which novelists, essayists, and activists who are not known as religious thinkers write about their favorite biblical passages. Our ancestors acknowledged doubt while practicing faith, he says; we moderns are drawn to faith while practicing doubt.
Thu, November 30, 2017
Anand Giridharadas and Whitney Kimball Coe — The Call to Community in a Changed World
No challenge before us is more important — and more potentially life-giving — than that we come to see and know our fellow citizens, our neighbors, who have become strangers. Journalist Anand Giridharadas and Whitney Kimball Coe of the Rural Assembly have two very different histories and places in our life together. But they are both stitching relationship across the ruptures that have made politics thin veneers over human dramas of power and frailty, fear and hope. We spoke at the Obama Foundation’s inaugural summit in Chicago.
Wed, November 22, 2017
Greg Boyle — The Calling of Delight: Gangs, Service, and Kinship
A Jesuit priest famous for his gang intervention programs in Los Angeles, Fr. Greg Boyle makes winsome connections between service and delight, and compassion and awe. He heads Homeboy Industries, which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. The point of Christian service, as he lives it, is about “our common calling to delight in one another.”
Thu, November 16, 2017
Ta-Nehisi Coates — Imagining a New America
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a poetic journalist and a defining voice of our times. He’s with us in a conversation that is joyful and hard and kind, soaring and down-to-earth all at once. He spoke with Krista as part of the 2017 Chicago Humanities Festival before an audience of over 1,500 people, black and white, young and old. To a teacher in the audience who asks how to speak to the young now about the complexity of our world, he says, “Give me the tools. Arm me. Allow me to be able to understand why. That’s not hope, but I think that’s the sort of perspective I would’ve come from, at that age.”
Wed, November 08, 2017
Rachel Yehuda — How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations
The new field of epigenetics sees that genes can be turned on and off and expressed differently through changes in environment and behavior. Rachel Yehuda is a pioneer in understanding how the effects of stress and trauma can transmit biologically, beyond cataclysmic events, to the next generation. She has studied the children of Holocaust survivors and of pregnant women who survived the 9/11 attacks. But her science is a form of power for flourishing beyond the traumas large and small that mark each of our lives and those of our families and communities.
Thu, November 02, 2017
Ellen Langer — Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness
Her unconventional studies have long suggested what neuroscience is now revealing: our experiences are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. Naming something play rather than work — or exercise rather than labor — can mean the difference between delight and drudgery, fatigue or weight loss. What makes a vacation a vacation is not only a change of scenery, but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control. Ellen Langer says mindfulness is achievable without meditation or yoga. She defines it as “the simple act of actively noticing things.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ellen Langer — Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness." Find more at onbeing.org.
Thu, October 19, 2017
Jonathan Haidt — The Psychology of Self-Righteousness
“When it comes to moral judgments, we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.” The surprising psychology behind morality is at the heart of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s research. He explains “liberal” and “conservative” not narrowly or necessarily as political affiliations, but as personality types — ways of moving through the world. His self-described “conservative-hating, religion-hating, secular liberal instincts” have been challenged by his own studies.
Thu, October 12, 2017
Joan Halifax — Buoyancy Rather Than Burnout in Our Lives
It’s easy to despair at all the bad news and horrific pictures that come at us daily. But Roshi Joan Halifax says this is a form of empathy that works against us. There’s such a thing as pathological altruism. This zen abbot and medical anthropologist has nourishing wisdom as we face suffering in the world.
Wed, September 27, 2017
Lisa Randall — Dark Matter, Dinosaurs, and Extra Dimensions
“When it comes to the world around us,” Lisa Randall has written, “is there any choice but to explore?” As one of the most influential theoretical physicists working today, she’s interested in the interconnectedness between fields that have previously operated more autonomously: astronomy, biology, and paleontology. She’s pursuing a theory that “dark matter” might have created the cosmic event that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs — and hence humanity’s rise as a species. We learn what she’s discovering, as well as the human questions and takeaways her work throws into relief.
Thu, September 21, 2017
Arnold Eisen — The Opposite of Good Is Indifference
“In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” A mystic, a 20th-century religious intellectual, a social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., famously saying afterwards that he felt his legs were praying. Heschel’s poetic theological writings are still read and widely studied today. His faith was as much about “radical amazement” as it was about certainty. And he embodied the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing.
Thu, September 14, 2017
Junot Díaz — Radical Hope Is Our Best Weapon
“From the bottom will the genius come that makes our ability to live with each other possible. I believe that with all my heart.” These are the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz. His hope is fiercely reality-based, a product of centuries lodged in his body of African-Caribbean suffering, survival, and genius.
Thu, August 17, 2017
John O’Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty
No conversation we’ve ever done has been more beloved than this one. This Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O’Donohue’s voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.
Thu, August 17, 2017
Nikki Giovanni — Soul Food, Sex, and Space
In the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni was a revolutionary poet of the Black Arts Movement that nourished civil rights. She had a famous dialogue with James Baldwin in Paris in 1971. Now a professor at Virginia Tech, she brought beauty and courage by way of poetry after the shooting there. Today, she is a self-proclaimed space freak and a delighted elder — an adored voice to hip-hop artists and the new forms of social change this generation is creating.
Thu, August 17, 2017
Ruby Sales — Where Does It Hurt?
The civil rights icon Ruby Sales names "a spiritual crisis of white America" as a calling of this time. During the days of the movement, she learned to ask the question, "Where does it hurt?" It’s a question we scarcely know how to ask in public life now, but it gets at human dynamics that we are living and reckoning with. A probing conversation at a convening of 20 theologians seeking to reimagine the public good of theology for this century.
Wed, August 09, 2017
Cloud Cult — Music Is Medicine
The band Cloud Cult is hard to categorize — both musically and lyrically — though it’s been called an “orchestral indie rock collective.” Less in question is the profound and life-giving force of its music. Cloud Cult’s trajectory was altered the day its co-founder and singer-songwriter, Craig Minowa, and his wife woke up to find that their two-year-old son had mysteriously died in his sleep. Live from our studios on Loring Park, we explore the art that has emerged ever since — spanning the human experience from the rawest grief to the fiercest hope.
Wed, August 02, 2017
Mary Catherine Bateson — Composing A Life
Life as an improvisational art, at every age. This idea animates the wise linguist and anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, whose book Composing a Life has touched many. Since her childhood as the daughter of the iconic anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, she’s had an ability to move through the world as both an original observer and a joyful participant. Now in her 70s, she’s pondering — and living — what she calls the age of “active wisdom.” She sees longer life spans creating a new developmental stage for our species.
Wed, July 26, 2017
danah boyd — The Internet of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Steeped in cutting edge research around the social lives of networked teens, danah boyd demystifies technology while being wise about the changes it’s making to life and relationship. She has intriguing advice on the technologically-fueled generation gaps of our age — that our children’s immersion in social media may offer a kind of respite from their over-structured, overscheduled analog lives. And that cyber-bullying is an online reflection of the offline world, and blaming technology is missing the point.
Thu, July 20, 2017
Matthieu Ricard — Happiness as Human Flourishing
A French-born Tibetan Buddhist monk and a central figure in the Dalai Lama's dialogue with scientists, Matthieu Ricard was dubbed "The Happiest Man in the World" after his brain was imaged. But he resists this label. In his writing and in his life, he explores happiness not as a pleasurable feeling but as a way of being that gives you the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life and that encompasses many emotional states, including sadness. We take in Matthieu Ricard's practical teachings for cultivating inner strength, joy, and direction.
Thu, July 13, 2017
Amichai Lau-Lavie — First Aid For Spiritual Seekers
Forms of religious devotion are shifting just like every institution right now. But there’s a new world of creativity towards crafting spiritual life while exploring the depths of tradition. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is a fun and forceful embodiment of this evolution. Born into an eminent and ancient rabbinical lineage, as a young adult he moved away from religion towards storytelling, theater, and drag. Today he leads a pop-up synagogue in New York City that takes as its tagline, “Everybody-friendly, artist-driven, God-optional.” It’s not merely about spiritual community but about recovering the sacred and reinventing the very meaning of “we.”
Thu, July 06, 2017
Billy Mills, Christina Torres, Ashley Hicks, et al. — Running as Spiritual Practice
We explore a topic our listeners have called out as a passionate force and a connector across all kinds of boundaries in American culture: running. Not just as exercise, or as a merely physical pursuit, but running as a source of bonding between parents and children and friends; running as an interplay between competition and contemplation; running and body image and survival and healing.
Mon, June 26, 2017
Annette Gordon-Reed and Titus Kaphar — Are We Actually Citizens Here?
In life, in families, we shine a light on the past to live more abundantly now. In this conversation at the Citizen University annual conference, historian Annette Gordon-Reed and painter Titus Kaphar lead us in an exploration of that as a public adventure. She is the historian who introduced the world to Sally Hemings and the children she had with Thomas Jefferson, and so realigned a primary chapter of the American story with the deeper, more complicated truth. He collapses timelines on canvas, and created iconic images after Ferguson. Both are reckoning with history in order to repair the present.
Tue, June 20, 2017
Martin Sheen — Spirituality of Imagination
The renowned actor as you’ve never heard him before. He has appeared in over 100 films, including Apocalypse Now. He’s best known on television as President Bartlet in The West Wing. But Martin Sheen, born and still legally named Ramón Estévez, has had another lesser-known life as a spiritual seeker and activist. He returned to a deep and joyful Catholic faith after a crisis at the height of his fame in mid-life. He’s been arrested over 60 times in vigils and protests. “Piety is something you do alone,” he says. “True freedom, spirituality, can only be achieved in community.”
Wed, June 14, 2017
Enrique Martínez Celaya — The Whisper of the Order of Things
A philosopher’s questioning and a scientist’s eye shape Enrique Martínez Celaya’s original approach to art and to life. A world-renowned painter who trained as a physicist, he’s fascinated by the deeper order that “whispers” beneath the surface of things. Works of art that endure, he says, possess their own form of consciousness. And a quiet life of purpose is a particular form of prophecy.
Wed, June 07, 2017
Hari Kondabolu, Lindy West, et al. — Humor as a Tool for Survival
Humor lifts us up but it also underscores what’s already great; it connects us with others and also brings us home to ourselves. And like everything meaningful, it’s complex and nuanced — it can be fortifying or damaging, depending on how we wield it. But as a tool for survival, humor is elemental. We explore this idea with a rabbi who started out in drag, comedians, an NPR host, writers of sci-fi fantasy, social commentary, and the TV show VEEP.
Thu, June 01, 2017
Brian Greene — Reimagining the Cosmos
A thrilling, mind-bending view of the cosmos and of the human adventure of modern science. In a conversation ranging from free will to the multiverse to the meaning of the Higgs boson particle, physicist Brian Greene suggests the deepest scientific realities are hidden from human senses and often defy our best intuition.
Wed, May 24, 2017
Patrisse Cullors and Robert Ross — The Spiritual Work of Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter co-founder and artist Patrisse Cullors presents a luminous vision of the spiritual core of Black Lives Matter and a resilient world in the making. She joins Dr. Robert Ross, a physician and philanthropist on the cutting edge of learning how trauma can be healed in bodies and communities. A cross-generational reflection on evolving social change.
Thu, May 18, 2017
Lyndsey Stonebridge — Thinking and Friendship in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt for Now
Along with George Orwell, the 20th-century political theorist Hannah Arendt is a new bestseller. She famously coined the phrase “the banality of evil” and wrote towering works like The Origins of Totalitarianism. She was concerned with the human essence of events that we analyze as historical and political. Totalitarianism she described as “organized loneliness,” and loneliness as the “common ground for terror.” The historian, she said, always knows how vulnerable facts are. And thinking is not something for elites; it is the human power to keep possibility alive.
Thu, May 11, 2017
Glenn Beck — What You Do Will Be a Pivot Point
He is a complicated person in American life, and he’s acknowledging his role in the damaged state we’re in. To create the world we want our children to inhabit, we all need to be ready to let others surprise us, to offer forgiveness, and to ask hard questions of our own part in this moment. This doesn’t happen often in politics, but it is essential in life, and it must be part of common life, too. As part of our ongoing Civil Conversations Project, Krista draws out Glenn Beck in this spirit.
Thu, May 04, 2017
Marie Howe — The Power of Words to Save Us
The moral life, Marie Howe says, is lived out in what we say as much as what we do. She became known for her poetry collection What the Living Do, about her brother’s death at 28 from AIDS. Now she has a new book, Magdalene. Poetry is her exuberant and open-hearted way into the words and the silences we live by. She works and plays with a Catholic upbringing, the universal drama of family, the ordinary rituals that sustain us — and how language, again and again, has a power to save us.
Mon, April 24, 2017
Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant — Resilience After Unimaginable Loss
Sheryl Sandberg is synonymous with Facebook, and Silicon Valley success, and she’s the voice of Lean In. She joins us, frank and vulnerable, together with the psychologist Adam Grant. His friendship – and his research on resilience - helped her survive the shocking death of her husband while on vacation. They share what they’ve learned about planting deep resilience in ourselves and our children, and even reclaiming joy. There is so much learning here, on facing the unimaginable when it arrives in our lives and being more practically caring towards the losses woven into lives all around us.
Wed, April 19, 2017
Helen Fisher — This Is Your Brain on Sex
As an anthropologist on the frontier of seeing inside our brains, Helen Fisher explores the thrilling and sometimes treacherous realms of love and sex. In the research she does for Match.com and her TED talks that have been viewed by millions of people, she wields science as an entertaining, if sobering, lens on what feel like the most meaningful encounters of our lives. And in this deeply personal conversation, she shows how it is possible to take on this knowledge as a form of wisdom and power.
Thu, April 13, 2017
Richard Rohr — Living In Deep Time
Men of all ages say Richard Rohr has given them a new way in to spiritual depth and religious thought — through his writing and retreats. This conversation with the Franciscan spiritual teacher delves into the expansive scope of his ideas: male formation and what he calls "father hunger"; why contemplation is as magnetic to people now, including millennials, as it’s ever been; and how to set about taking the first half of life — the drive to "successful survival" — all the way to meaning.
Wed, April 05, 2017
Heather McGhee and Matt Kibbe — Repairing the Breach
It’s hard to imagine honest, revelatory, even enjoyable conversation between people on distant points of American life right now. But in this public conversation with Krista at the Citizen University annual conference, Matt Kibbe and Heather McGhee show us how. He's a libertarian who helped activate the Tea Party. She's a millennial progressive leader. They are bridge people for this moment — holding passion and conviction together with an enthusiasm for engaging difference, and carrying questions as vigorously as they carry answers.
Thu, March 23, 2017
Joy Ladin — Transgender Amid Orthodoxy: I Am Who I Will Be
For as far back as Joy Ladin can remember, her body didn’t match her soul. Gender defines us from the moment we’re born. But how is that related to the lifelong work of being at home in ourselves? We explore this question through Joy Ladin's story of transition from male to female — in an Orthodox Jewish world.
Thu, March 09, 2017
Bessel van der Kolk — How Trauma Lodges in the Body
Human memory is a sensory experience, says psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk. Through his longtime research and innovation in trauma treatment, he shares what he’s learning about how bodywork like yoga or eye movement therapy can restore a sense of goodness and safety. What he’s learning speaks to a resilience we can all cultivate in the face of the overwhelming events — which, after all, make up the drama of culture, of news, and of life.
Wed, March 01, 2017
Pádraig Ó Tuama — Belonging Creates and Undoes Us Both
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and extraordinary healer in our world of fracture. He leads the Corrymeela community of Northern Ireland, a place that has offered refuge since the violent division that defined that country until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. And Pádraig and Corrymeela extend a quiet, generative, and joyful force far beyond their northern coast to people around the world. "Over cups of tea, and over the experience of bringing people together," Pádraig says, it becomes possible "to talk with each other and be in the same room with the people we talk about."
Thu, February 23, 2017
Marilyn Nelson — Communal Pondering in a Noisy World
Marilyn Nelson has taught poetry and contemplative practice to college students and to West Point cadets. She gives winsome voice to forgotten people from history, shining a light on the complicated ancestry that can help us in what she calls “communal pondering.” To sit with Marilyn Nelson is to gain a newly spacious perspective on what that might mean — and on why, in this troubled moment, Americans young and old are turning to poetry with urgency.
Thu, February 16, 2017
Margaret Wertheim — The Grandeur and Limits of Science
A passionate translator of the beauty and relevance of scientific questions, Margaret Wertheim is also wise about the limits of science to tell the whole story of the human self. Her Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles reveals evocative, visceral connections between high mathematics, crochet and other folk arts, and our love of the planet.
Thu, February 02, 2017
Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, Shane Claiborne — How To Be a Christian Citizen: Three Evangelicals Debate
White Evangelical Christians helped secure the election of President Trump. Many said that his views on abortion were decisive, overriding concerns they had on other matters. But to be Evangelical is not one thing, even on abortion. This conversation about Christianity and politics with three generations of Evangelical leaders — Shane Claiborne, Greg Boyd, and the late Chuck Colson — feels more relevant in the wake of the 2016 election than it did when we first recorded it. We offer this searching dialogue, which is alive anew, to a changed political landscape.
Thu, January 26, 2017
John Lewis — Love In Action
We take in the extraordinary wisdom of Congressman John Lewis, on what happened in Selma on Bloody Sunday and beyond — and how it might inform common life today. A rare look inside the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation with themselves — and their intricate art of "love in action."
Thu, January 19, 2017
Eula Biss — Let’s Talk About Whiteness
Could we learn to talk about whiteness? The writer Eula Biss has been thinking and writing about being white and raising white children in a multi-racial world for a long time. She helpfully opens up words and ideas like “complacence,” “guilt,” and something related to privilege called “opportunity hoarding.” To be in this uncomfortable conversation is to realize how these words alone, taken seriously, can shake us up in necessary ways — but also how the limits of words make these conversations at once more messy and more urgent.
Thu, January 12, 2017
Anil Dash — Tech’s Moral Reckoning
A wildly popular blogger, a tech entrepreneur, and Silicon Valley influencer, Anil Dash has been an early activist for moral imagination in the digital sphere — an aspiration which has now become an urgent task. We explore the unprecedented power, the learning curves ahead, and how we can all contribute to the humane potential of technology in this moment.
Thu, December 22, 2016
Gordon Hempton — Silence and the Presence of Everything
Silence is an endangered species, says Gordon Hempton. He defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise. The Earth, as he knows it, is a "solar-powered jukebox." Quiet is a "think tank of the soul." We take in the world through his ears.
Wed, December 14, 2016
Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman — Meeting Our Enemies and Our Suffering
Two legendary Buddhist teachers shine a light on the lofty ideal of loving your enemies and bring it down to Earth. How can that be realistic, and what do we have to do inside ourselves to make it more possible? In a conversation filled with laughter and friendship, Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman share much practical wisdom on how we relate to that which makes us feel embattled from without, and from within.
Wed, December 07, 2016
Alice Parker — Singing Is the Most Companionable of Arts
Singing is able to touch and join human beings in ways few other arts can. Alice Parker is a wise and joyful thinker and writer on this truth, and has been a hero in the universe of choral music as a composer, conductor, and teacher for most of her 90 years. She began as a young woman, studying conducting with Robert Shaw at Juilliard, and collaborated with him on arrangements of folk songs, spirituals, and hymns that are still performed around the world today.
Thu, December 01, 2016
James Martin — Finding God in All Things
Before Pope Francis, James Martin was perhaps the best-loved Jesuit in American life. He’s followed the calling of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, to “find God in all things” — and for him that means being a writer of books, an editor of America magazine, and as a wise and witty presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. To delve into Fr. Martin's way of being in the world is to discover the "spiritual exercises" St. Ignatius designed to be accessible to everyone more than six centuries ago.
Tue, November 22, 2016
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn — Truth, Beauty, Banjo
They are partners in music and in life — recovering something ancient and deeply American all at once, bringing both beauty and meaning to what they play and how they live. Béla Fleck is one of the greatest living banjo players in the world. He’s followed what many experience as this quintessential American roots instrument back to its roots in Africa and taken it where no banjo has gone before. Abigail Washburn is a celebrated banjo player and singer, both in English and Chinese. Nashville Public radio brought us together at the Belcourt Theater in their hometown.
Thu, November 10, 2016
Vincent Harding — Is America Possible?
In an unsettled political moment, at the end of a divisive campaign, the late, great civil rights elder Vincent Harding is a voice of calm, wisdom, and perspective. He was wise about how the civil rights vision might speak to twenty-first century realities. Just as importantly, he pursued this by way of patient yet passionate cross-cultural, cross-generational relationship. He reminded us that the Civil Rights Movement was spiritually as well as politically vigorous; it aspired to a "beloved community," not merely a tolerant integrated society. He posed and lived a question that is freshly in our midst: Is America possible?
Thu, October 27, 2016
Natasha Trethewey and Eboo Patel — How to Live Beyond This Election
This political season has surfaced our need to reimagine and re-weave the very meaning of common life and common good. We take a long, nourishing view of the challenge and promise of this moment with former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and interfaith visionary Eboo Patel. This is the second of two public conversations convened by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis on the eve of the 2016 presidential debate on that campus.
Wed, October 19, 2016
David Brooks and E.J. Dionne — Sinfulness, Hopefulness, and the Possibility of Politics
This is a strange, tumultuous political moment. With columnists David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, we step back from the immediate political gamesmanship. We take public theology as a lens on the challenge and promise we will all be living as citizens, whoever our next president might be. This public conversation was convened by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis, the day before the second presidential debate on that campus.
Wed, October 05, 2016
Leonard Mlodinow — Randomness and Choice
Fundamental forces of physics somehow determine everything that happens, “from the birth of a child to the birth of a galaxy.” Yet physicist Leonard Mlodinow has an intriguing perspective on the gap between theory and reality — and the fascinating interplay between a life in science and life in the world. As the child of two Holocaust survivors, he asks questions about our capacity to create our lives, while reflecting on extreme human cruelty — and courage.
Wed, September 28, 2016
Alain de Botton — A School of Life for Atheists
Alain de Botton is a philosopher who likes the best of religion, but doesn’t believe in God. He says that the most boring question you can ask of any religion is whether it is true. But how to live, how to die, what is good, and what is bad - these are questions religion has sophisticated ways of addressing. So he’s created The School of Life — where people young and old explore ritual, community, beauty and wisdom. He explains why these ideas shouldn’t be reserved just for believers.
Wed, September 21, 2016
Parker Palmer and Courtney Martin — The Inner Life of Rebellion
The history of rebellion is rife with excess and burnout. But new generations have a distinctive commitment to be reflective and activist at once, to be in service as much as in charge, and to learn from history while bringing very new realities into being. Quaker wise man Parker Palmer and journalist and entrepreneur Courtney Martin come together for a cross-generational conversation about the inner work of sustainable, resilient social change.
Thu, September 15, 2016
Ruby Sales — Where Does It Hurt?
Where does it hurt? That’s a question the civil rights icon Ruby Sales learned to ask during the days of that movement. It’s a question we scarcely know how to ask in public life now, but it gets at human dynamics that we are living and reckoning with. At a convening of 20 theologians seeking to reimagine the public good of theology for this century, Ruby Sales unsettles some of what we think we know about the force of religion in civil rights history, and names a “spiritual crisis of white America” as a calling of this time.
Thu, September 08, 2016
Jimmy Wales — The Sum of All Human Knowledge
In the 15 years since its inception, Wikipedia has become as much a global community as a business venture - a living organism with a mission statement to make “the sum of all human knowledge available to every person in the world.” And a conversation with co-founder Jimmy Wales - one of the architects of that philosophy and the world-changing project that has grown up around it - is full of surprises. What Wikipedia is learning has resonance for our wider public life - about the imperfect but gratifying work of navigating truth amidst difference, ongoing learning, and dynamic belonging.
Fri, August 19, 2016
Gustavo Santaolalla — How Movie Music Moves Us
Movies, for some of us, are a form of modern church. The Argentinian composer and musician Gustavo Santaolalla creates cinematic landscapes — movie soundtracks that become soundtracks for life. He's won back-to-back Academy Awards for his original scores for Brokeback Mountain and Babel. We experience his humanity and creative philosophy behind a kind of music that moves us like no other.
Wed, August 17, 2016
Billy Mills, Christina Torres, Ashley Hicks, et al. — Running as Spiritual Practice
For the Summer Olympics, we explore a topic our listeners have called out as a passionate force and a connector across all kinds of boundaries in American culture: running. Not just as exercise, or as a merely physical pursuit, but running as a source of bonding between parents and children and friends; running as an interplay between competition and contemplation; running and body image and survival and healing.
Thu, August 04, 2016
Paulo Coelho — The Alchemy of Pilgrimage
The Brazilian lyricist Paulo Coelho is best known for his book, The Alchemist — which has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 400 weeks. His fable-like stories turn life, love, writing, and reading into pilgrimage. In a rare conversation, we meet the man behind the writings and explore what he’s touched in modern people. Find more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/paulo-coelho-the-alchemy-of-pilgrimage/6639
Tue, July 19, 2016
Xavier Le Pichon — The Fragility at the Heart of Humanity
Xavier Le Pichon, one of the world's leading geophysicists, helped create the field of plate tectonics. A devout Catholic and spiritual thinker, he raised his family in intentional communities centered around people with mental disabilities. He shares his rare perspective on the meaning of humanity — a perspective equally informed by his scientific and personal encounters with fragility as a fundament of vital, evolving systems. Le Pichon has come to think of caring attention to weakness as an essential quality that allowed humanity to evolve. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/xavier-le-pichon-the-fragility-at-the-heart-of-humanity/101
Wed, July 13, 2016
Thich Nhat Hanh, Cheri Maples, and Larry Ward — Being Peace in a World of Trauma
The Vietnamese Zen master, whom Martin Luther King nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, is a voice of power and wisdom in this time of tumult in the world. We visited Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat attended by police officers and other members of the criminal justice system; they offer stark gentle wisdom for finding buoyancy and “being peace” in a world of conflict, anger, and violence. Find more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/thich-nhat-hanh-cheri-maples-and-larry-ward-being-peace-in-a-world-of-trauma/74
Wed, June 29, 2016
Joe Henry — The Mystery and Adventure of Life and Songwriting
In life as in song, Joe Henry says "we're really called not to dispel mystery but to abide it, to engage it." He brings an inward wisdom to the art and craft of making music. Cherished by fans and fellow musicians alike, he’s produced a dozen albums of his own and for an array of artists, including Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Allen Toussaint, and Billy Bragg. And he’s written songs together with Rosanne Cash and Madonna. With Joe Henry, we probe the mystery and adventure of discovering life through music. Find more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/joe-henry-the-mystery-and-adventure-of-life-and-songwriting/7313
Thu, June 23, 2016
Pauline Boss — The Myth of Closure
There is no such thing as closure. Family therapist Pauline Boss says that the idea of closure in fact leads us astray — it’s a myth we need put aside, like the idea we’ve accepted that grief has five linear stages and we come out the other side done with it. She coined the term “ambiguous loss,” creating a new field in family therapy and psychology. And she has wisdom for the complicated griefs and losses in all of our lives and in how we best approach the losses of others — including those very much in our public midst right now. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/pauline-boss-the-myth-of-closure/8757
Thu, June 16, 2016
Samar Jarrah, Wajahat Ali, Sahar Ullah, et al. — Revealing Ramadan
Sixteen Muslims, in their own words, speak about the delights and gravity of Islam's holiest month. Through vivid memories and light-hearted musings, they reveal the richness of Ramadan — as a period of intimacy, and of parties; of getting up when the world is quiet for breakfast and prayers with one's family; of breaking the fast every day after nightfall in celebration and prayers with friends and strangers. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/revealing-ramadan/165
Thu, June 02, 2016
Jonathan Haidt + Melvin Konner — Capitalism and Moral Evolution: A Civil Provocation
It was supposed to be a discussion about "culture and conscience" with two social scientists, as part of a public gathering of the Center for Humans and Nature at the American Museum of Natural History. But Jonathan Haidt is studying the relationship between capitalism and moral evolution, and our conversation took off from there in surprising directions. The liberal view of capitalism as essentially exploitative may remain alive and well, Haidt says. But the ironic truth of history is that capitalism actually generates liberal values as it takes root in societies. Our conversation preceded this American cultural-political season but offers provocative perspective on it. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/jonathan-haidt-and-melvin-konner-capitalism-and-moral-evolution-a-civil-provocation/8704
Thu, May 19, 2016
Kevin Kling — The Losses and Laughter We Grow Into
Kevin Kling is part funny guy, part poet and playwright, part wise man. A treasured figure on the national storytelling circuit, his voice inhabits an unusual space — where a homegrown Minnesota wit meets Dante and Shakespeare. Born with a disabled left arm, he lost the use of his right one after a motorcycle accident nearly killed him. He shares his special angle on life's humor and its ruptures — and why we turn loss into story. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/kevin-kling-the-losses-and-laughter-we-grow-into/1863
Thu, May 12, 2016
David Isay — Listening as an Act of Love
"The soul is contained in the human voice," says David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. He sees the StoryCorps booth — a setting where two people ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask each other — as a sacred space. He shares his wisdom about listening as an act of love, and how eliciting and capturing our stories is a way of insisting that every life matters. Find more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/david-isay-listening-as-an-act-of-love/6268
Thu, May 05, 2016
Krista Tippett — An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
This episode, a “theft of the dial.” Writer and traveler Pico Iyer turns the tables on our host Krista Tippett by asking her the questions. Her latest book, "Becoming Wise," chronicles what she’s learned through her conversations with the most extraordinary voices across time and generations, across disciplines and denominations. An illuminating conversation on the mystery and art of living. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/krista-tippett-an-inquiry-into-the-mystery-and-art-of-living/8644
Thu, April 28, 2016
Frank Wilczek — Why Is the World So Beautiful?
Nobel physicist Frank Wilczek sees beauty as a compass for truth, discovery, and meaning. His book, A Beautiful Question, is a long meditation on the question: “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” He’s the unusual scientist willing to analogize his discoveries about the deep structure of reality with deep meaning in the human everyday. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/frank-wilczek-why-is-the-world-so-beautiful/8565
Thu, April 21, 2016
Michelle Alexander — Who We Want to Become: Beyond the New Jim Crow
The civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander is one of the people who is waking us up to history we don't remember, and structures most of us can't fathom intending to create. She calls the punitive culture that has emerged the "new Jim Crow," and is making it visible in the name of a fierce hope and belief in our collective capacity to engender the transformation to which this moment is calling. Find more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/michelle-alexander-who-we-want-to-become-beyond-the-new-jim-crow/8603
Thu, April 14, 2016
Craig Minowa — Music and the Ritual of Performance
The band Cloud Cult is hard to categorize — both musically and lyrically — though it's been called an "orchestral indie rock collective." Less in question is the profound and life-giving force of its music. Cloud Cult's trajectory was altered the day its co-founder and singer-songwriter, Craig Minowa, and his wife woke up to find that their two-year-old son had mysteriously died in his sleep. Live from our studios on Loring Park, we explore the art that has emerged ever since — spanning the human experience from the rawest grief to the fiercest hope. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/craig-minowa-music-and-the-ritual-of-performance/8584
Thu, April 07, 2016
David Whyte — The Conversational Nature of Reality
“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet / confinement of your aloneness / to learn / anything or anyone / that does not bring you alive / is too small for you.” David Whyte is a poet and philosopher who believes in the power of a “beautiful question” amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life — amidst the ways the two overlap, whether we want them to or not. He shared a deep friendship with the late Irish philosopher John O’Donohue. They were, David Whyte says, like “two bookends.” More recently, he’s written about the consolation, nourishment, and underlying meaning of everyday words. Find more www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/8560
Thu, March 31, 2016
Tiffany Shlain — Growing Up the Internet
When Tiffany Shlain thinks of her favorite quote from naturalist John Muir, she thinks of the internet: "When you tug at a single thing in the universe, you find it's attached to everything else." As a filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards — the "Oscars of the internet" — she is committed to reframing technology as an expression of the best of what humanity is capable, with all the complexity that entails. With her young family, she has helped popularize the practice of the "tech shabbat" — 24 unplugged hours each week. Her perspective on our technology-enhanced lives is ultimately a purposeful and enriching one: the internet is our global brain, towards which we can apply all the wisdom we are gaining about the brains in our heads and the character in our lives. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/tiffany-shlain-growing-up-the-internet/8545
Thu, March 24, 2016
Nathan Schneider — The Wisdom of Millennials
There’s a kind of brilliance that flashes up in early adulthood: an ability to see the world whole. Nathan Schneider has been able to articulate and sustain that far-seeing eye of young adulthood. He’s also a gifted writer, chronicling the world he and his compatriots are helping to make — spiritual, technological, and communal. At the Chautauqua Institution, we explore the wisdom of a millennial generation public intellectual on the emerging fabric of human identity. Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/nathan-schneider-the-wisdom-of-millennials/6911
Thu, March 17, 2016
Nikki Giovanni — Soul Food, Sex, and Space
In the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni was a revolutionary poet of the Black Arts Movement that nourished civil rights. She had a famous dialogue with James Baldwin in Paris in 1971. Now a professor at Virginia Tech, she brought beauty and courage by way of poetry after the shooting there. Today, she is a self-proclaimed space freak and a delighted elder — an adored voice to hip-hop artists and the new forms of social change this generation is creating. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/nikki-giovanni-soul-food-sex-and-space/8501
Thu, February 04, 2016
Jean Berko Gleason — Unfolding Language, Unfolding Life
Jean Berko Gleason is a living legend in the field of psycholinguistics — how language emerges, and what it tells us about how we think and who we are. She has helped to illustrate the remarkable ordinary human capacity to begin to speak, and she’s continued to break new ground in exploring what this may teach us about adults as about the children we’re raising. We keep learning about the human gift, as she puts it, to be conscious of ourselves and to comment on that. For her, the exploration of language is a frontier every bit as important and thrilling as exploring outer space or the deep sea. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/unfolding-language-unfolding-life/256
Thu, January 28, 2016
B.J. Miller — Reframing Our Relationship to That We Don't Control
“Let death be what takes us,” Dr. B.J. Miller has written, “not a lack of imagination.” As a palliative care physician, he brings a design sensibility to the matter of living until we die. And he’s largely redesigned his sense of own physical presence after an accident at college left him without both of his legs and part of one arm. He offers a transformative reframing on our imperfect bodies, the ways we move through the world, and all that we don’t control. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/bj-miller-reframing-our-relationship-to-that-we-don-t-control/8380
Thu, January 07, 2016
Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, and Arnold Rampersad — W.E.B. Du Bois & the American Soul
One of the most extraordinary minds of American and global history, W.E.B. Du Bois penned the famous line that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” He is a formative voice for many of the people who gave us the Civil Rights Movement. But his passionate, poetic words and intelligence continue to enliven 21st-century life on the color line and beyond it. We bring Du Bois’ life and ideas into relief — featuring one of the last interviews the great Maya Angelou gave before her death. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/maya-angelou-elizabeth-alexander-arnold-rampersad-web-du-bois-the-american-soul/6442
Thu, December 31, 2015
Carrie Newcomer — A Conversation with Music
Something of a celebrity in Quaker circles, Carrie Newcomer is best known for her story-songs that get at the raw and redemptive edges of human reality. This week, a musical conversation with the Indiana-based and born folk singer-songwriter whose been called a "prairie mystic." She writes and sings about the grittiness of hope and the ease of cynicism. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/carrie-newcomer-a-conversation-with-music/7049
Wed, December 23, 2015
Paul Muldoon — A Conversation with Verse
The Irish poet and The New Yorker poetry editor Paul Muldoon has won the Pulitzer Prize, written for other media from radio to song, and plays in a rock band. He visited us for a magical day at the On Being studios on Loring Park in Minneapolis, including a dinner salon and reading from his work. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/paul-muldoon-a-conversation-with-verse/8276
Wed, December 16, 2015
Martin Sheen — Spirituality of Imagination
Actor Martin Sheen as you've never heard him before. He has appeared in over 100 films, including Apocalypse Now. He’s best known on television as President Bartlet in seven seasons of The West Wing. But Martin Sheen, born and still legally named Ramón Estévez, has had another lesser-known life as a spiritual seeker and activist. He returned to a deep and joyful Catholic faith after a crisis at the height of his fame in in mid-life. He’s been arrested over 60 times in vigils and protests. "Piety is something you do alone," he says. "True freedom, spirituality, can only be achieved in community." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/martin-sheen-spirituality-of-imagination/8257
Thu, December 10, 2015
Jennifer Michael Hecht — Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves
Stay. That’s the message that philosopher, poet, and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht puts at the center of her unusual writing about suicide. She’s traced how the history of Western civilization has, at times, demonized those who commit suicide, and, at times, celebrated it as a moral freedom. She has struggled with suicidal places in her life and lost friends to it. As a scholar, she’s now proposing a new cultural reckoning with suicide, based not on morality or on rights but on our essential need for each other. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/jennifer-michael-hecht-suicide-and-hope-for-our-future-selves/6187
Thu, December 03, 2015
Penny George, Mark Hyman, and James Gordon — The Evolution of Medicine
A transformation of medicine is underway — a transition from a science of treating disease to a science of health. Mark Hyman is a family physician and a pioneer in the new discipline of Functional Medicine. James Gordon is an expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression, anxiety, and psychological trauma. Penny George became a philanthropist of integrative medicine after she experienced cancer in mid-life. With Krista, before a live audience at the University of Minnesota, they discuss the challenge and promise of aligning medicine with a twenty-first century understanding of human wholeness. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mark-hyman-james-gordon-and-penny-george-the-evolution-of-medicine/8183
Thu, November 19, 2015
Ann Hamilton — Making, and the Spaces We Share
The philosopher Simone Weil defined prayer as “absolutely unmixed attention.” The artist Ann Hamilton embodies this notion in her sweeping works of art that bring all the senses together. She uses her hands to create installations that are both visually astounding and surprisingly intimate, and meet a longing many of us share, as she puts it, to be alone together. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ann-hamilton-making-and-the-spaces-we-share/6147
Thu, October 29, 2015
Jonathan Sacks — The Dignity of Difference
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and one of the world’s deep thinkers on religion in our age. He’s just released a new book, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. In this intimate conversation with Krista, he speaks about how Jewish and other religious ideas can inform modern challenges. Rabbi Sacks says that the faithful can and must cultivate their own deepest truths — while finding God in the face of the stranger and the religious other. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/dignity-difference/188
Thu, October 22, 2015
Adam Grant — Successful Givers, Toxic Takers, and the Life We Spend at Work
The organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who many know from his New York Times columns, describes three human orientations, of which we are all capable: the givers, the takers, and the matchers. These also influence whether organizations are joyful or toxic for human beings. His studies are dispelling a conventional wisdom that selfish takers are the most likely to succeed professionally. And, he is wise about practicing generosity in organizational life — what he calls making “microloans of our knowledge, our skills, our connections to other people” — in a way that is transformative for others, ourselves, and our places of work. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/adam-grant-successful-givers-toxic-takers-and-the-life-we-spend-at-work/8058
Thu, October 08, 2015
Nancy Cantor and Christopher Howard — Beyond the Ivory Tower
When we talk about the relationship between colleges and the world, we tend to focus on economics. But what is the place of institutions of higher education in the communities they inhabit? How can and should they nurture students as citizens and leaders for the emerging 21st century world? Two visionary college presidents of two very different institutions take up these questions with Krista at the American Council on Education's 97th Annual Meeting. http://www.onbeing.org/program/christopher-howard-nancy-cantor-beyond-the-ivory-tower/8015
Thu, October 01, 2015
Mary Catherine Bateson — Composing a Life
The wise linguist and anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson explores the matter of life as an improvisational art, at every age. As the daughter of the iconic anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, she’s had an ability to move through the world as both an original observer and a joyful participant. She’s composed a life that is far more settled but always in dialogue with the memory of her brilliant, globe-trotting, unconventionally-coupled parents. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mary-catherine-bateson-composing-a-life/7968
Thu, September 24, 2015
Guy Consolmagno and George Coyne — Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God
More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it. A Jesuit was one of the founders of modern astrophysics. And four Jesuits in history, including Ignatius of Loyola, have had asteroids named after them – Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne being the two living men with this distinction. In a conversation filled with friendship and laughter, and in honor of the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S., we experience the spacious way they think about science, the universe, and the love of God. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/asteroids-stars-and-love-god/68
Wed, September 16, 2015
Louis Newman — The Refreshing Practice of Repentance
The High Holy Days create an annual ritual of repentance, both individual and collective. Louis Newman, who has explored repentance as a ethicist and a person in recovery, opens this up as a refreshing practice for every life, even beyond the lifetime of those to whom we would make amends. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/louis-newman-the-refreshing-practice-of-repentance/7923
Thu, September 03, 2015
Mike Rose — The Intelligence in All Kinds of Work, and the Human Core of All Education That Matters
“I grew up a witness” Mike Rose writes, “to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This then is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work.” In all our debates about standardized testing and the information economy, the value of learning to work and the future of liberal arts education, we may risk too narrow a view of the way the physical, the human, and the intellectual blend in all kinds of learning and in all work that matters. Mike Rose’s expansive wisdom could enlarge our civic imagination on big subjects at the heart of who we are — schooling, social class, and the deepest meaning of vocation. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mike-rose-the-intelligence-in-all-kinds-of-work-and-the-human-core-of-all-education-that-matters/208
Thu, August 13, 2015
Grace Lee Boggs — A Century in the World
Chinese-American philosopher and civil rights legend Grace Lee Boggs turned 100 this summer. She has been at the heart and soul of a largely hidden story inside Detroit’s evolution from economic collapse to rebirth. We traveled in 2011 to meet her and her community of joyful, passionate people reimagining work, food, and the very meaning of humanity. They have lessons for us all. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/grace-lee-boggs-a-century-in-the-world/1060
Thu, August 13, 2015
Rex Jung — Creativity And The Everyday Brain
Few features of humanity are more fascinating than creativity; and few fields are more dynamic now than neuroscience. Rex Jung is a neuropsychologist who puts the two together. He's working on a cutting edge of science, exploring the differences and interplay between intelligence and creativity. He and his colleagues unsettle long-held beliefs about who is creative and who is not. And they're seeing practical, often common-sense connections between creativity and family life, aging, and purpose. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/creativity-and-everyday-brain/1879
Wed, August 12, 2015
Katy Payne — In the Presence of Elephants and Whales
We were made and set here, the writer Annie Dillard once wrote, "to give voice to our astonishments." Katy Payne is a renowned acoustic biologist with a Quaker sensibility. And she’s found her astonishment in listening to two of the world’s most exotic creatures. She has decoded the language of elephants and was among the first scientists to discover that whales are composers of song. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/katy-payne-in-the-presence-of-elephants-and-whales/241
Thu, August 06, 2015
John O'Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty
The Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue was beloved for his book Anam Ċara, Gaelic for "soul friend," and for his insistence on beauty as a human calling. In one of his last interviews before his death in 2008, he articulated a Celtic imagination about how the material and the spiritual — the visible and the invisible — intertwine in human experience. His voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/john-o-donohue-the-inner-landscape-beauty/203
Thu, July 23, 2015
Elizabeth Alexander — Words That Shimmer
Poetry is something many of us seem to be hungry for these days. We're hungry for fresh ways to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, for language that would elevate and embolden rather than demean and alienate. Elizabeth Alexander shares her sense of what poetry works in us — and in our children — and why it may become more relevant, not less so, in hard and complicated times. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/elizabeth-alexander-words-that-shimmer/246
Wed, July 08, 2015
Rami Nashashibi — A New Coming Together
Rami Nashashibi uses graffiti, calligraphy, and hip-hop in his work as a healing force on the South Side of Chicago. A Palestinian-American, he started his activism with at-risk urban Muslim families, especially youth, while he was still a college student. Now he’s the leader of a globally-emulated project converging religious virtues, the arts, and social action. And he is a fascinating face of a Muslim-American dream flourishing against the odds in post-9/11 America. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/rami-nashashibi-a-new-coming-together/5011
Thu, June 25, 2015
john a. powell — Opening the Question of Race to the Question of Belonging
“Race is a little bit like gravity,” john powell says: experienced by all, understood by the few. He is an esteemed legal scholar and thinker who counsels all kinds of people and projects on the front lines of our present racial anguish and longings. Race is relational, he reminds us. It’s as much about whiteness as about color. And it largely plays out, as we’re learning through new science, in our unconscious minds. john powell is steeped in this new learning and offers it to us, as a form of everyday power, to animate our belonging to others that is already real. But we must claim it. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/john-a-powell-opening-the-question-of-race-to-the-question-of-belonging/7695
Thu, June 18, 2015
Mario Livio — Mysteries of an Expanding Universe
The Hubble Space Telescope, which turns 25 this year, has brought the beauty of the cosmos into our lives. Mario Livio works with discoveries it makes possible, studying things like dark energy, extrasolar planets, and white dwarf stars. He's fascinated with the enduring mystery of mathematics, the language of science. He describes the cosmic puzzles that accompany our greatest scientific advances. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mario-livio-mysteries-of-an-expanding-universe/244
Thu, June 11, 2015
Simone Campbell — How to be Spiritually Bold
She became a national figure as the face of the Nuns on the Bus. Sr. Simone Campbell is a lawyer, lobbyist, poet, and Zen contemplative working on issues such as “mending the wealth gap,” “enacting a living wage,” and “crafting a faithful budget that benefits the 100%.” She is a helpful voice for longings so many of us share, across differences, about how to engage with the well-being of our neighbors in this complicated age. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/simone-campbell-how-to-be-spiritually-bold/7654
Wed, June 03, 2015
Pico Iyer — The Art of Stillness
Journalist, novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer has become one of our most eloquent explorers of what he calls the "inner world" — in himself and in the 21st Century world at large. He travels the globe from Ethiopia to North Korea and lives in Japan. But he also experiences a remote Benedictine hermitage as his second home, retreating there many times each year. In this intimate conversation, we explore the discoveries he's making and his practice of "the art of stillness.” See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pico-iyer-the-art-of-stillness/7615
Thu, May 28, 2015
Jean Vanier — The Wisdom of Tenderness
The philosopher and Catholic social innovator Jean Vanier is a teacher of the wisdom of tenderness. The L’Arche movement, which he founded, centers around people with mental disabilities and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. We experience how Jean Vanier brings the most paradoxical religious teachings to life: that there’s power in humility, strength in weakness, and light in the darkness of human existence. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/234
Thu, May 07, 2015
Jane Gross — The Far Shore of Aging
It is a story of our time — the new landscape of living longer, and of dying more slowly too. Jane Gross has explored this as a daughter and as a journalist, and as creator of the New York Times’ “New Old Age” blog. She has grounded advice and practical wisdom about caring for our loved ones and ourselves on the far shore of aging. http://www.onbeing.org/program/far-shore-aging/255
Thu, April 30, 2015
Mohammed Fairouz — The World in Counterpoint
He’s been called a "post-millennial Schubert": Mohammed Fairouz has composed four symphonies and an opera while still in his 20s. He invokes John F. Kennedy and Anwar Sadat, Seamus Heaney, and Yehuda Amichai in his compositions — seeing "illustrious language" as a form of music too — and a way, just maybe, to shift the world on its axis. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mohammed-fairouz-the-world-in-counterpoint/7511
Thu, April 16, 2015
David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch — The Future of Marriage
What would it take to make our national encounter with gay marriage redemptive rather than divisive? David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch came to the gay marriage debate from very different directions — but with a shared concern about the institution of marriage. Now, they’re pursuing a different way for all of us to grapple with the future of marriage, redefined. They model a fresh way forward as the subject of same-sex marriage is before the Supreme Court. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/future-marriage-david-blankenhorn-and-jonathan-rauch/4883
Wed, April 08, 2015
danah boyd — Online Reflections of Our Offline Lives
Steeped in the cutting edge of research around the social lives of networked teens, danah boyd demystifies technology while being wise about the changes it’s making to life and relationship. She has intriguing advice on the technologically-fueled generation gaps of our age — that our children’s immersion in social media may offer a kind of respite from their over-structured, overscheduled analog lives. And that cyber-bullying is an online reflection of the offline world, and blaming technology is missing the point. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/danah-boyd-online-reflections-of-our-offline-lives/7449
Thu, March 26, 2015
Bruce Kramer — Forgiving the Body: Life with ALS
From the moment of his diagnosis with ALS, Bruce Kramer began writing — openly, deeply, and spiritually — about his struggle, as he puts it, to live while dying. He died while we were in production on this show. His words hold abiding joy and beauty, and reveal an unexpected view opened by this disease. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/bruce-kramer-forgiving-the-body-life-with-als/7420
Thu, March 19, 2015
Alan Dienstag — Alzheimer's and the Spiritual Terrain of Memory
Alzheimer's disease has been described as "the great unlearning." But what does it reveal about the nature of human identity? What remains when memory unravels? Alan Dienstag is a psychologist who has led support groups with early Alzheimer's patients, as well as a writing group he co-designed with the novelist Don DeLillo. He's experienced the early stages of Alzheimer's as a time for giving memories away rather than losing them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/alan-dienstag-alzheimers-and-the-spiritual-terrain-of-memory/64
Thu, March 12, 2015
Arthur Zajonc and Michael McCullough — Mind And Morality: A Dialogue
For several hundred years, much of scientific advance has been about exploring human beings, including their actions and choices, in terms of mechanism — our bodies, our brains, physical processes. Research psychologist Michael McCullough believes that understanding our minds as mechanistic creates moral possibility. He’s led groundbreaking studies on the evolution and cultivation of moral behaviors such as forgiveness and gratitude. Arthur Zajonc is a physicist and contemplative, who believes that the farthest frontiers of science are bringing us back to a radical reorientation towards life and the foundations for our moral life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/arthur-zajonc-and-michael-mccullough-mind-and-morality/7316
Thu, March 05, 2015
Eve Ensler — The Body After Cancer
Eve Ensler has helped women all over the world tell the stories of their lives through the stories of their bodies. Her play, "The Vagina Monologues," has become a global force in the face of violence against women and girls. But she herself also had a violent childhood. And it turns out that she herself was like so many of us western women, obsessed by our bodies and yet not inhabiting them — without even knowing we're not inhabiting them. Until she got cancer. See more www.onbeing.org/program/a-second-wind/6050
Thu, February 19, 2015
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons and Lucas Johnson — The Movement, Remembered Forward
Wisdom for how we can move and heal our society in our time as the Civil Rights Movement galvanized its own. Lucas Johnson is bringing the art and practice of nonviolence into a new century, for new generations. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons was an original Black Power feminist and a grassroots leader of the Mississippi Freedom Summer. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/gwendolyn-zoharah-simmons-and-lucas-johnson-the-movement-remembered-forward/6101
Thu, January 29, 2015
Brené Brown — The Courage to Be Vulnerable
Courage is borne out of vulnerability, not strength. This finding of Brené Brown’s research on shame and "wholeheartedness" shook the perfectionist ground beneath her own feet. And now it’s inspiring millions to reconsider the way they live, parent, and navigate relations with members of the opposite gender. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/brene-brown-on-vulnerability/4928
Thu, December 04, 2014
Seth Godin — The Art of Noticing, and Then Creating
We live in a world that is recreating itself one life and one digital connection at a time. On this landscape for which there are no maps, Seth Godin is a singular thought leader and innovator in what he describes as our post-industrial "connection economy." Rather than merely tolerate change, he says, we are all called now to rise to it. We are invited and stretched in whatever we do to be artists — to create in ways that matter to other people. See more www.onbeing.org/program/seth-godin-on-the-art-of-noticing-and-then-creating/5000
Thu, November 20, 2014
Reza Aslan — Islam's Reformation
In a probing and personal conversation, Reza Aslan opens a refreshing window on religion in the world and Islam in particular. It’s a longer view of history and humanity than news cycles invite — certainly when it comes to the Arab Spring, or to ISIS. His life is a kind of prism on the fluid story of religion in this century. But in a globalized world, we all have a personal stake in how this story unfolds. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/reza-aslan-on-islams-reformation/7039
Thu, November 13, 2014
Bernard Chazelle — Discovering the Cosmology of Bach
Computer scientist Bernard Chazelle has an original take on what music works in us — especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Just as mathematicians talk about discovering rather than inventing great equations, so, he says, Bach set out to “discover” the musical rules behind the universe. After hearing this conversation, you may never listen to any piece of music — whether Bach or Jay-Z — in quite the same way again. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/bernard-chazelle-discovering-the-cosmology-of-bach/7026
Thu, October 23, 2014
Nadia Bolz-Weber — Seeing the Underside and Seeing God: Tattoos, Tradition, and Grace
She’s the tattooed, Lutheran pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, a church where a chocolate fountain, a blessing of the bicycles, and serious liturgy come together. She's a face of the Emerging Church — redefining what church is, with deep reverence for tradition. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/nadia-bolz-weber-seeing-the-underside-and-seeing-god-tattoos-tradition-and-grace/5896
Thu, October 16, 2014
Scott Atran — Hopes and Dreams in a World of Fear
For over a decade, the French-American anthropologist Scott Atran has been listening to the hopes and dreams of young people from Indonesia to Egypt. He explores the human dynamics of what we analyze as “breeding grounds for terrorism” — why some young people become susceptible to them and others, in the same circumstances, do not. His work sheds helpful light on the question on so many of our minds as we watch horrific news of the day: How could this happen — and how could we possibly help transform it? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/scott-atran-hopes-and-dreams-in-a-world-of-fear/84
Wed, October 01, 2014
Michel Martin — The Fabric of Our Identity
The third in a four-part series, "The American Consciousness." If journalism is a primary way we tell the story of ourselves and our time, Michel Martin is a person helping us tell that story — and take part in it — more completely. Her daily NPR program Tell Me More was often labeled as “diversity” or “minority” programming. But in fact, she and her journalism are about a more generous and realistic sweep of who we are now — and how we’re creating our life together anew. At the Chautauqua Institution, we mine her wisdom on the emerging fabric of human identity. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/michel-martin-the-fabric-of-our-identity/6791
Wed, September 24, 2014
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Jonathan Sacks, Et Al. — Pursuing Happiness
The XIV Dalai Lama seems to many to embody happiness — happiness against the odds, a virtue that is acquired and practiced. Before a live audience in Atlanta, Georgia, Krista had a rare opportunity to mull over the meaning of happiness in contemporary life with him and three global spiritual leaders: a Muslim scholar, a chief rabbi, and a presiding bishop. An invigorating and unpredictable discussion exploring the themes of suffering, beauty, and the nature of the body. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pursuing-happiness-dalai-lama/147
Thu, September 18, 2014
Richard Rodriguez — The Fabric of Our Identity
The second in a four-part series, "The American Consciousness." After September 11, 2001, Richard Rodriguez traveled to the Middle East to explore his kinship, as a Roman Catholic, with the men who stepped onto airplanes and turned them into weapons of terror. What he learned illuminates some of the deepest paradox and promise of the world we inhabit. He is an especially intriguing conversation partner for right now — a life and mind straddling left and right, religious and secular, immigrant and intellectual. At the Chautauqua Institution, we mine his wisdom on the emerging fabric of human identity. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/richard-rodriguez-the-fabric-of-our-identity/6761
Thu, September 11, 2014
Imani Perry — The Fabric of Our Identity
The first in a four-part series on "The American Consciousness." Imani Perry is a scholar of law, culture, race — and hip hop. She acknowledges wise voices who say that we will never get to the promised land of racial equality. She writes, “That may very well be true, but it also true that extraordinary things have happened and keep happening in our history. The question is, how do we prepare for and precipitate them?” We took her up on this emboldening question at the Chautauqua Institution, on the cusp of yet a new collective reckoning with the racial fabric of American life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/imani-perry-the-fabric-of-our-identity/6747
Thu, August 14, 2014
Dan Barber — Driven by Flavor
Dan Barber is a celebrated young chef — but his passionate ethics and intellect have made him much more. He's out to restore food to its rightful place vis-à-vis our bodies, our ecologies and our economies. And he would do this by resurrecting our natural insistence on flavor. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/driven-flavor-dan-barber/88
Thu, August 07, 2014
Adele Diamond — The Science of Attention
What Adele Diamond is learning about the brain challenges basic assumptions in modern education. Her work is scientifically illustrating the educational power of things like play, sports, music, memorization, and reflection. What nourishes the human spirit, the whole person, it turns out, also hones our minds. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/learning-doing-being-new-science-education/121
Tue, August 05, 2014
Anita Desai and Andrew Robinson — The Modern Resonance of Rabindranath Tagore
He bestowed the title “Mahatma” on Gandhi. He debated the deepest nature of reality with Einstein. He was championed by Yeats and Pound to become the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Rabindranath Tagore was a polymath — a writer and a painter, a philosopher and a musician, and a social innovator — but much of his poetry and prose is virtually untranslatable (or inaccessibly translated) for modern minds. We pull back the "dusty veils" that have hidden his memory from history. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/anita-desai-and-andrew-robinson-rabindranath-tagore/6342
Thu, July 31, 2014
Seane Corn — Yoga, Meditation in Action
Yoga has infiltrated law schools and strip malls, churches and hospitals. This 5,000-year-old spiritual technology is converging with 21st-century medical science and with many religious and philosophical perspectives. Seane Corn takes us inside the practicalities and power of yoga. She describes how it helps her face the darkness in herself and the world, and how she’s come to see yoga as a form of body prayer. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/yoga-meditation-action/248
Wed, July 23, 2014
Dario Robleto — Sculptor of Memory
Sculptural artist Dario Robleto is famous for spinning and shaping unconventional materials — from dinosaur fossils to pulverized vintage records, from swamp root to cramp bark. He joins words and objects in a way that distills meaning at once social, poetic, and scientific. He reveals how objects can become meditations on love, war, and healing. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/dario-robleto-sculptor-of-memory/6640
Thu, July 03, 2014
Steven Waldman and Philip Hamburger — The Long Experiment of American Democracy (July 3, 2014)
For the Fourth of July, a refreshing reality check about the long road of American democracy. We remember forgotten but fascinating, useful history as we contemplate how we might help young democracies on their own tumultuous paths now. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/steven-waldman-and-philip-hamburger-the-long-experiment-of-american-democracy/6413
Thu, June 19, 2014
Stuart Brown — Play, Spirit, and Character
Who knew that we learn empathy, trust, irony, and problem solving through play — something the dictionary defines as "pleasurable and apparently purposeless activity." Dr. Stuart Brown suggests that the rough-and-tumble play of children actually prevents violent behavior; that play can grow human talents and character across a lifetime. Play, as he studies it, is an indispensable part of being human. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/play-spirit-and-character/143
Thu, June 05, 2014
Rosanne Cash, Time Traveler (June 5, 2014)
As the daughter of Johnny Cash, singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash describes her life as "circumscribed by music." But, it's through her love of language and quantum mechanics that she's finding new sources of creativity and mathematical ways to think about the divine. The mother of five shares her perspectives on being present, Twitter as a "boot camp for songwriters," and how she wrestles with love and grief through her music. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/rosanne-cash-time-traveler/1048
Thu, May 08, 2014
Maria Tatar — The Great Cauldron of Story: Why Fairy Tales are for Adults Again (May 8, 2014)
Fairy tales don't only belong to the domain of childhood. Their overt themes are threaded throughout hit TV series like Game of Thrones and True Blood, Grimm and Once Upon a Time. These stories survive, says Maria Tatar, by adapting across cultures and history. They are carriers of the plots we endlessly re-work in the narratives of our lives — helping us work through things like fear and hope. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/the-great-cauldron-of-story-maria-tatar-on-why-fairy-tales-are-for-adults-again/5073
Thu, April 24, 2014
Jaroslav Pelikan — The Need for Creeds (Apr. 24, 2014)
The very idea of reciting an unchanging creed sounds suspicious to modern ears. But the late, great historian Jaroslav Pelikan illuminated ancient tradition in order to enliven faith in the present and the future. He insisted that strong statements of belief will be necessary if 21st Century pluralism is to thrive. We take in his moving, provocative perspective on our enduring need for creeds. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/need-creeds/211
Thu, April 10, 2014
Avivah Zornberg — The Transformation of Pharaoh, Moses, and God (April 10, 2014)
With a master of midrash as our guide, we walk through the Exodus story at the heart of Passover. It's not the simple narrative you've watched at the movies or learned in Sunday school. Neither Moses or Pharaoh, nor the oppressed Israelites or even God, are as they seem. As Avivah Zornberg reveals, Exodus is a cargo of hidden stories — telling the messy, strange, redemptive truth of us as we are, and life as it is. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/avivah-zornberg-the-transformation-of-pharaoh-moses-and-god/6258
Thu, April 03, 2014
Janna Levin — Mathematics, Purpose, and Truth (April 3, 2014)
An astrophysicist who’s also explored her science by way of a novel about two pivotal 20th-century mathematicians, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Both pushed at boundaries where mathematics presses on grand questions of meaning and purpose. Such questions helped create the technologies that are now changing our sense of what it means to be human. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mathematics-purpose-and-truth/130
Thu, March 20, 2014
Desmond Tutu — A God Of Surprises (Mar 20, 2014)
"There's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love." South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on how his understanding of God and humanity has unfolded through the history he's lived and shaped. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/desmond-tutus-god-surprises/85
Wed, March 12, 2014
Brian McLaren — The Equation of Change (Mar 13, 2014)
Brian McLaren is an influential voice in the worlds of progressive Evangelicalism and what has been called “emerging” Christianity. In a provocative conversation on the meaning and future of Church, he envisions a community where diversity no longer means division. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/brian-mclaren-the-equation-of-change/6175
Thu, March 06, 2014
Sherwin Nuland — The Biology of the Spirit (Mar 6, 2014)
Dr. Sherwin Nuland died this week at the age of 83. He became well-known for his first book, How We Die, which won the National Book Award. For him, pondering death was a way of wondering at life — and the infinite variety of processes that maintain human life moment to moment. He reflects on the meaning of life by way of scrupulous and elegant detail about human physiology. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/biology-spirit/184 About the image: Zoe Middleton poses behind an artwork entitled 'My Soul' by Katharine Dawson, which consists of a laser etched lead chrystal glass formation in the shape of a brain, and was created using the artists own MRI Scan, from an exhibit at the Wellcome Collection in London. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Wed, February 26, 2014
Bobby McFerrin — Catching Song (Feb 27, 2014)
He is a genius of improvisation; a genre-bending vocal magician and conductor. And he sings the territory between music, mystery, and spirit. Who better to contemplate the human voice — its delights, its revelations, and its mystery — than Bobby McFerrin? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/catching-song-bobby-mcferrin/249
Thu, February 20, 2014
Paul Elie — Faith Fired by Literature (Feb 20, 2014)
Art, life, and religious faith converge in Paul Elie's unusual biography of the intersecting stories of four literary Americans of the 20th century: Trappist monk Thomas Merton, social activist Dorothy Day, and fiction writers Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. "Certain books, certain writers," Elie says, "reach us at the center of ourselves." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-fired-literature/99
Wed, February 05, 2014
David Hartman — Hope In a Hopeless God (Feb 6, 2014)
Rabbi Hartman was a charismatic and challenging figure in Israeli society and a champion of adaptive Judaism. He convened rare encounters of Jews from different backgrounds--men and women--at his institute. We remember his window into the unfolding of his tradition in the modern world - Judaism as a lens on the human condition. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/david-hartman-hope-in-a-hopeless-god/16
Wed, January 22, 2014
Jean Bethke Elshtain, John Paul Lederach, and Michael Orange — Justice and a Just War (Nov 9, 2001)
Just-war theory was set in motion in the 5th century as St. Augustine agonized over how to reconcile Christianity's high ethical ideals with the devastating world realities which were bringing about the fall of Rome. For 1,600 years, theologians, ethicists, diplomats, and political leaders have drawn on this tradition, refined it, and employed its key questions: When is it permissible to wage war? And how might our ethical and religious foundations place limits on the ways we wage war? In this program, we explore three varied perspectives on how such questions are alive and evolving today, and how they might inform our approach to the conflict in Afghanistan and the peace we would like to achieve beyond it. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/justice-and-just-war/115
Wed, January 22, 2014
Robert Pollack, Rami Nashabishi, Lisa Lampman, and others — The Problem Of Evil (Feb 15, 2002)
Many around the world labeled the events of September 11 as "evil." President Bush in his recent State of the Union speech described "an axis of evil." But what does the word mean? It is a subject of enduring theological debate, even of scientific argument. It drives to the heart of the question: What does it mean to be human? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/problem-evil/220
Wed, January 22, 2014
Parker Palmer, Phyllis Tickle, Ingrid Mattson + others — The Spiritual Fallout of 9/11 (Sep 5 2002)
In this program, we delve into uncomfortable religious and moral questions that the September 2001 terrorist attacks raised—questions of meaning that Americans have only begun to ponder one year later. This hour also features the riveting first-person account of veteran public radio producer Marge Ostroushko, who captures elements of the religious life that grew up at and around Ground Zero and was largely hidden from news reporting. Her coverage, which you won't hear anywhere else, includes the ash-swirled final service, and an interview with the priest who coordinated the 24-hour team of clergy who blessed every human remain found there since 9/11. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spiritual-fallout-911/228
Wed, January 22, 2014
Mario Cuomo and Mark Souder — Faith and Politics in America (Feb 20, 2003)
Even among deeply religious Americans, there's no consensus on the proper role of religion in politics. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, D.C., recently invited two veteran politicians to address this issue: former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana. They were asked to speak about how they have reconciled personal religious conviction with serving a pluralistic American constituency. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-and-politics-america/98
Wed, January 22, 2014
Peter J. Gomes, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Chris Hedges — Religion in a Time of War (April 25, 2003)
More than any crisis in modern memory, the War on Terror—including the current U.S. military presence in Iraq—is being debated in religious, usually Christian, terms. We explore the nuances of that debate with a former war correspondent, a political theorist, and a renowned preacher. We ask how and whether Christian principles really make a difference at this moment in our national life—and if not, why not? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religion-time-war/156
Wed, January 22, 2014
Thomas Moore, Debra Haffner, and Anthony Ugolnik — Spirituality and Sexuality (Jun 27, 2003)
Christian scripture and tradition have overwhelmingly shaped American attitudes toward sexuality. And in the past year, our national attention has been riveted on sexual scandal within the Catholic Church. In this program, we crack open the difficult subject of Christian tradition and healthy sexuality. What is the positive sexual ethic of the Bible, beyond the identification of sin? What does sexuality have to do with the human spirit and how might this change they way it is discussed in communities of faith? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirituality-and-sexuality/177
Wed, January 22, 2014
Rebecca Chopp, Kecia Ali + Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen — Women, Marriage, and Religion (Aug 1, 2003)
Over the last four decades, women's roles have changed dramatically — at home, in the work force and in religious institutions as well. In America, resistance to this is often couched in religious terms. Where there is a backlash against feminism and its repercussions, it is often embodied in religious practice. Host Krista Tippett speaks with three devoutly religious women who also call themselves feminist. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/women-marriage-and-religion/245
Wed, January 22, 2014
John Lipscomb and Catherine Roskam — Homosexuality and The Divided Church (Aug 8, 2003)
The General Convention of the Episcopal Church has sharpened our culture's intensifying focus on homosexuality. In a year of political and religious milestones for gays and lesbians, Gene Robinson became the first openly gay man to be elected an Episcopal Bishop. There were 11th-hour allegations of impropriety. But in the end, the laity, clergy, and House of Bishops of the Church confirmed his election. This week, we set aside the ins and outs of the Robinson controversy. The public furor over this event flows, in part, from our culture's confusion over what it might mean to morally condone homosexual relationships. And Gene Robinson aside, this issue remains an ongoing source of bitter debate among Anglicans and in most of the mainline churches in this country. How can people of faith reach radically different conclusions while living in the same tradition? Host Krista Tippett engages two Episcopal bishops on either side of the matter in a thoughtful conversation that aims to clarify our understanding of the religious issues at stake. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/homosexuality-and-divided-church/110
Wed, January 22, 2014
Roberta Bondi, Michele Balamani, Anoushka Shankar, and others — Patterns of Prayer (Nov 27, 2003)
In recent years, the practices of prayer have been evolving for many religious traditions. Even western medicine is looking at prayer as it expands its concept of healing. In this program, we consult several people from a variety of practices about the role of prayer in their lives. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/patterns-prayer/140
Wed, January 22, 2014
Charles Haynes, Philip Hamburger + Cheryl Crazy Bull — Religious Liberty in America (Jan 15, 2004)
At the center of our history of church and state is a troublesome irony. What began as an attempt to guarantee religious tolerance in the new world has at various times been commandeered by the most chauvinistic movements America has known. In spite of this, religious liberty has survived as an American ideal—one which we continue to test. We live in a world of increasing religious pluralism—diversity beyond the imagining of our nation's founders—which suggests fresh nuance to the meaning of religious liberty. This much is clear: our modern conversation has few connections to the social, political, and religious impulses that led to the First Amendment. Host Krista Tippett and her guests revisit the history and meaning of separation in thought-provoking and, at times, unsettling ways. Charles Haynes talks about his work in the American public school system—the arena in which our modern debates often center. Philip Hamburger describes his research into the surprising, and largely forgotten, origins of separation of church and state. And, Cheryl Crazy Bull speaks about the loss and reemergence of religious expression in tribal public life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religious-liberty-america-legacy-church-and-state/158
Wed, January 22, 2014
Michael Cromartie and E. J. Dionne — Religion on the Campaign Trail (Jan 22, 2004)
Religious pronouncements seem to have become mandatory for the Democratic candidates in this election. Yet it's been easy to deride the resulting sound bites that are widely repeated—such as Howard Dean's proclamation of his favorite book of the New Testament: the Old Testament book of Job. Host Krista Tippett takes a larger view of what this election has to say about the role of religion in American life. Is it changing, and if so, what is substantive and important in that change? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religion-campaign-trail/157
Wed, January 22, 2014
Coleen Rowley and Tim McGuire — Work and Conscience (Feb 12, 2004)
Host Krista Tippett explores the practical implications of spirituality at work with Federal Bureau of Investigations special agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley and syndicated columnist Tim McGuire. In May 2002, Rowley wrote a now-famous 13-page letter to Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI. In it, Rowley raised serious and detailed concerns about how the FBI had handled leads prior to the September 11th attacks. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/work-and-conscience/247
Wed, January 22, 2014
Ahmed H. al-Rahim — A Perspective on Islam in Iraq (Mar 4, 2004)
The religious landscape of Iraq is complex and somewhat enigmatic to the western world. Nearly 97% of Iraq's 25 million people are Muslim, and a majority of Iraqis are Shiite rather than Sunni. What does that mean? And how powerful is the prominent cleric Ayatollah Ali al Sistani who has effectively challenged the American-led coalition. Could he become another Islamic revolutionary like Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini? As part of Iraq's rebuilding process, the Iraqi governing council agreed on an interim constitution that cites Islam as a source — but not the primary source — of future legislation. Approval of the interim constitution was delayed first by violence, and then by a group of Shiite council members who raised objections to elements within it. Host Krista Tippett speaks at length with Iraqi-American professor and advisor, Ahmed al-Rahim, for insight into the unfolding new relationship between mosque and state in Iraq. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/perspective-islam-iraq/55
Wed, January 22, 2014
Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Richard Hays, and Linda Loving — Passover and Easter (Apr 8, 2004)
In the coinciding seasons of Passover and Easter, two world religions celebrate their core stories in ritual and worship. Each of these sacred holidays is based on a key biblical story of suffering and deliverance. The Christian Holy Week commemorates the death of Jesus leading to the Easter celebration of resurrection. In eight days of Passover, Jews remember and reenact the exodus story. What can ancient narratives of violence and miracle have to say to contemporary audiences? Host Krista Tippett explores faithful ways of living with these stories and giving them modern sense with featured readings from the Bible, words of a 14th century mystic, and poetry from Wendell Berry. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/program-passover-and-easter/56
Wed, January 22, 2014
David Fox-Benton and Bruce Weigl — Sacrifice and Reconciliation (May 27, 2004)
In remembering the legacy of four World War II chaplains -- Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish -- who went down together with their torpedoed ship in 1943, we speak with David Fox, nephew of one of the chaplains. We also hear interviews with surviving veterans and veterans of the German ship that torpedoed them. Finally, a conversation with author, poet, and Vietnam War veteran Bruce Weigl. His most recent book, The Circle of Hahn, chronicles the long personal journey he has made back to Vietnam and to the adoption of a beloved Vietnamese child. The paradox of his life as a writer, he says, is that the war ruined his life and gave him his voice. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/sacrifice-and-reconciliation/170
Wed, January 22, 2014
Robert Franklin and Margaret Poloma — Pentecostalism in America (Jun 10, 2004)
Pentecostalism began on the American frontier, and it has become one of the largest expressions of global Christianity. In less than a century, it has grown to hundreds of millions of adherents. Today, Pentecostalism is pan-denominational. There are charismatic Catholics and Lutherans, unaffiliated Pentecostal communities, and established Pentecostal traditions, most prominently the Assemblies of God. Host Krista Tippett speaks with a theologian about the rise of Pentecostal worship among African-Americans in every denomination and a sociologist on her study of modern day Pentecostals — whom she sees as mystics among us. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pentecostalism-america/141
Tue, January 21, 2014
Joseph Califano — Religion and Politics (Jul 14, 2004)
We speak with Washington insider Joseph Califano, a devout, lifelong Catholic, who held key positions inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter administrations. Califano provides frank insight into the practical difficulties of applying religious ideals in the political arena. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religion-and-politics-joseph-califano/154
Tue, January 21, 2014
Khaled Abou El Fadl, Richard Mouw + Yossi Klein Halevi — The Power of Fundamentalism (Aug 19 2004)
Religious fundamentalism has reshaped our view of world events. In this show, host Krista Tippett explores the appeal of fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, as experienced from the inside. Three accomplished men, who were religious extremists at one time in their lives, provide revealing insight into the spiritual and cultural dimensions of fundamentalism. They also discuss religious impulses which counter the fundamentalist world view and helped them break free. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/power-fundamentalism/218
Tue, January 21, 2014
Steven Waldman — Beyond The God Gap (Sep 16, 2004)
The theory of the "God gap"—often broadly suggesting that religious Americans are conservative and will vote Republican while non-religious Americans are liberal and will vote Democratic—has been prominent in press reporting and political maneuvering in the 2004 presidential race. At their recent conventions, both parties seemed to grapple with faith dynamics and respond to the perceived God gap in interesting, unexpected ways. Krista speaks with Steven Waldman, who covered the 2004 Democratic and Republican conventions for religious messages, images, and language. He says that, strictly speaking, the God gap is a myth. We'll look beyond the headlines about the political gulf that reportedly separates religious and secular Americans. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/beyond-god-gap/72
Tue, January 21, 2014
Carl Feit, Anne Foerst, and Lindon Eaves — Science and Being (Sep 23, 2004)
Many of history's greatest scientists considered their work to be a religious endeavor, a direct search for God. Pioneers like Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo believed that their discoveries told humanity more about God's nature than had been known. Beginning in the early 18th century, science and religion came to be at odds — the gap widening most famously with the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. In recent years, a new dialogue has begun, driven by leading scientists across the world. Host Krista Tippett explores with three scientists, each of whom is working in a field that's rapidly advancing our understanding of what it means to be human. From very different perspectives, they suggest that our most sophisticated 21st-century discoveries may be driving us back to questions of faith. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/science-and-being/171
Tue, January 21, 2014
Vincent Cornell — Violence and Crisis in Islam (Sep 30, 2004)
Many Americans received a violent introduction to Islam in September 2001. And yet, only one quarter of Americans told pollsters then that they considered Islam itself to be more likely than other religions to encourage violence in its believers. In the last two years, that figure has almost doubled. The specter of violence committed in the name of Islam has become as routine as it is shocking, especially at present in Iraq. In this hour, we take a critical look at what is happening in Islam from inside a practice of that tradition. Krista discusses the present escalation of violence in the name of Islam with a practicing Muslim and leading scholar of Islamic studies, Vincent Cornell. He paints a bleak picture of chaos and drift within Islam which may presage renewal or the continued decay of the religion he loves. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/violence-and-crisis-islam/240
Tue, January 21, 2014
Sharon Salzberg, Lawrence Kushner, Anne Lamott, and Omid Safi — The Meaning of Faith (Oct 7, 2004)
In our time, some associate the word "religion" with rigid dogma and the excesses of institutions. The word "spirituality" on the other hand can seem to have little substance or form. The word "faith" can appear as a compromise of sorts, pointing to the content of religious tradition and spiritual experience. The truth is, all of these words are vague in the abstract. They gain meaning in the context of human experience. In this show, we'll explore the connotations of the word "faith" in four traditions and lives: Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We'll speak with Sharon Salzberg, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Anne Lamott, and Omid Safi. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/meaning-faith/207
Tue, January 21, 2014
Muqtedar Khan and Cheryl Sanders — The Other Religious America in Election 2004 (Oct 21, 2004)
In this show, we speak with an African American Christian and an American Muslim and explore the perspectives of two religious communities which defy the broad stereotypes of this election year. We'll seek to gain a deeper understanding of the way in which they are thinking through the mix of religious ideas that have come to the forefront of this campaign. These religious people see complex choices between competing religious ideals, and they are making their decisions in ways that challenge the intuition of pollsters and pundits. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/other-religious-america-election-2004/216
Tue, January 21, 2014
Robert Coles, Diane Komp, and Carol Dittberner — Children and God (Dec 16, 2004)
Maria Montessori, the great 20th-century educational pioneer, observed that children have an intuition for religious life at an early age that is matched only by their capacity to acquire language. During this holiday season, Speaking of Faith explores the spiritual wisdom and intelligence of children—including their ability to process the difficult realities of life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/children-and-god/76
Tue, January 21, 2014
Steven Waldman — The Future of Moral Values (Jan 20, 2005)
We deconstruct the phrase "moral values," which has confused and divided Americans since November's election. As the second term of George W. Bush commences, political analyst Steven Waldman helps explore what these words do and do not convey to liberals and conservatives, and why they still matter. What is at stake when both sides fail to understand the moral convictions of the other? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/future-moral-values/198
Tue, January 21, 2014
Phyllis Tickle + Lynn Clark — A Return To Mystery: Religion, Fantasy + Entertainment (Feb 3, 2005)
During the past decade, there has been an explosion of films and television programs containing religious and spiritual themes. Mel Gibson's The "Passion of the Christ" was only the tip of the iceberg. As new generations of Americans work out their spiritual and religious questions, they are increasingly turning to fantasy. We'll explore the deeper appeal of films like "Harry Potter" and "The Matrix," and we'll ask how fantasy in media reflects a changing spiritual imagination, especially in younger Americans. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/return-mystery-religion-fantasy-and-entertainment/57
Tue, January 21, 2014
Laurie Zoloth — A Theological Perspective on Cloning
The idea of human cloning both fascinates and repulses many, and challenges us to ask difficult religious questions? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/theological-perspective-cloning/59
Tue, January 21, 2014
Joel Marcus — The Jewish Roots of the Christian Story
New Testament writings about Jews may sound inflammatory in modern ears. A New Testament scholar with ties to both Judaism and Christianity helps us put these writings in context and look for meaning in the Passion that Hollywood and popular culture can't convey. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/jewish-roots-christian-story/205
Tue, January 21, 2014
Sylvia Poggioli, Donald Cozzens, and Margaret A. Farley — The Religious Legacy of John Paul II
John Paul II's papacy was dramatic and historic on many fronts. Speaking of Faith explores some of the critical religious issues of his 26 years as pontiff and discusses the great and contradictory impact he made on the Catholic Church in America and abroad. Host Krista Tippett speaks with NPR's senior European correspondent Sylvia Poggioli, priest and author Donald Cozzens, and Yale theologian Margaret Farley. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religious-legacy-john-paul-ii/221
Tue, January 21, 2014
Jelle de Boer and Ursula Goodenough — The Morality of Nature
We explore the human and religious implications of natural disasters through the eyes of two scientists steeped in the workings of the natural world. We approach the morality of nature from a non-theological angle, tracing how natural disasters have sometimes fueled religious agendas and movements and how strictly scientific perspectives can both challenge and illuminate religious questions. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/morality-nature/210
Tue, January 21, 2014
Debbie Morris, Helen Prejean, and Elie Spitz — Reflections on the Death Penalty in America
The American public supports the principle of capital punishment, but there is a growing consensus among Jewish and Christian thinkers — across traditional liberal/conservative lines — that it should be abolished in this country or suspended while the system for imposing it is made more just. Reflections on justice, forgiveness, and the nature of God shed new light on America's death penalty debate. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/reflections-death-penalty-america/151
Tue, January 21, 2014
Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad — Serving Country, Serving Allah
There are an estimated 4,000 Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military, though some counts place that number much higher. We'll speak with the first Muslim imam in the US Army Chaplaincy -- Major Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad -- about Iraq, faith, and military service. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/serving-country-serving-allah/174
Tue, January 21, 2014
Khaled Abou El Fadl and Harold M. Schulweis — Religion and Our World in Crisis
In this personal exchange between a Jewish rabbi and Islamic scholar, host Krista Tippett explores the integrity of religious faith and openness to the faiths of others. In a world in which religious experience is implicated in violence, two thinkers discuss how it is possible to love their own traditions and honor those of others. This program was recorded live at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles in June 2003. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religion-and-our-world-crisis/153
Tue, January 21, 2014
Joseph L. Price — In Praise Of Play
If sport is an American religion, is that bad for us? What is the metaphysic of baseball? In this show, we'll speak with a theologian and sports fan who has spent much of his career studying the religious character of rituals in sporting events and the spiritual significance of fans' attention to sports. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/praise-play/111
Tue, January 21, 2014
Kecia Ali, Omid Safi, Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, and Michael Wolfe — Progressive Islam in America
In the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, scrutiny of the religion of Islam has become part and parcel of our public life. In forums of all kinds, often guided by non-Muslim pundits, we ask, what does terrorism have to do with the teachings of the Qur'an? Can Islam coexist with democracy? Is Islam capable of a reformation, or has it fallen into hopeless decay? We pose these questions to a spectrum of American Muslims who describe themselves as devout and moderate. Our guests take us inside the way Muslims discuss such questions among themselves, and they suggest that when we consider "the Muslim world" we must look first at Islam in this country. In this open society, they say, Islam has found a home like no other. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/progressive-islam-america/146
Tue, January 21, 2014
Miroslav Volf — Religion and Violence
Religious extremism drives some of the most intractable conflicts around the world. Our guest knows this shadow side of the Christian faith in his personal history. We'll speak about what goes wrong when religion turns violent, and why, he believes, the cure for religious zealotry is not less religion but more religion — or rather stronger and more intelligent practices of faith. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religion-and-violence/155#sthash.P3WmxEEW.dpuf
Tue, January 21, 2014
James K. A. Smith and Nancey Murphy — Evangelicals, Out of the Box
Stereotypes tell us this: Evangelical Christians are politically conservative, closed-minded, morally judgmental, and anti-science. We speak with two creative members of a new generation of Evangelical thinkers and teachers, who defy stereotypes and reveal an evolving character for this vast movement that describes 40 percent of Americans. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evangelicals-out-box/92
Mon, January 20, 2014
Joan Brown Campbell and Thomas Hoyt, Jr. — Living Reconciliation Two Ecumenical Pioneers
Two people with unique perspectives both discovered ecumenism — the movement to reconcile Christian churches — during the Civil Rights era. They'll describe what they've learned about grappling with vexing clashes of difference, and why reconciliation among different Christians still matters in a multi-religious, post-Katrina world. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/living-reconciliation-two-ecumenical-pioneers/127
Mon, January 20, 2014
Don Saliers and Edward Foley — The Meaning of Communion: At the Table
What are the origins of communion, and what is its deepest social relevance? Two leading theologians of communion describe a ritual that is not just personally meaningful for the believer, but also collectively and ethically challenging for Christians. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/table-meaning-communion/69
Mon, January 20, 2014
Joan Halifax — A Midwife to the Dying
The Terri Schiavo case earlier this year raised ethical and medical issues that remain with us today. But missing in that debate was a real attention to the quality and the meaning of death. Joan Halifax tells us what she's learned and how she lives differently after three decades accompanying others to the final boundary of human life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/midwife-dying/52
Thu, January 09, 2014
Patrick Bellegarde-Smith — Living Vodou (Jan 9, 2014)
The word "Vodou" evokes images of sorcery and sticking pins into dolls. In fact, it's a living tradition wherever Haitians are found based on ancestral religions in Africa. We walk through this mysterious tradition — one with dramatic rituals of trances and dreaming and of belief in spirits, who speak through human beings, with both good and evil potential. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/living-vodou/128
Thu, January 02, 2014
Marilynne Robinson + Marcelo Gleiser — The Mystery We Are (Jan 2, 2013)
Marcelo Gleiser is an astrophysicist. Marilynne Robinson is a novelist. They’re both passionate about the majesty of science and they share a caution about what they call our modern “piety” towards science. They connect thrilling dots among the current discoveries about the cosmos and the new territory of understanding our own minds. A joyous, heady discussion of “the mystery we are.”
Wed, January 01, 2014
Alberto Ambrosio + Elpidophoros Lambriniadis — Spiritual Boundaries in Modern Turkey (Aug 2, 2012)
We meet a Fr. Alberto Ambrosio, a Dominican friar whose Christianity is inspired by the mystical tradition of Islam. And, Metropolitan Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, is creating what he calls a 'dialogue of life' as a religious minority in this crucible of the ancient church.
Tue, December 31, 2013
Jim Daly and Gabe Lyons — The Next Christians (Sep 20, 2012)
Two Christian leaders are working to restore Christian engagement in the world. Gabe Lyons and Jim Daly discuss how they who are reshaping their part in common life, and the common good. This often surprising conversation addresses subjects like gay marriage, abortion, and the strident reputation that Christian evangelicals have earned in the past decade. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/next-christians/4839
Tue, December 31, 2013
Sen. Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin — Political Bridge People (Oct 25, 2012)
A veteran Republican senator and Democratic economist are political bridge people who've brought differing approaches and shared love of country to generations of economic policy. In this tense political moment, they offer straight talk and wise perspective — and won’t let partisan gridlock have the last word. The final dialogue in our Civil Conversations Project. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/political-bridge-people-pete-domenici-and-alice-rivlin/4892
Tue, December 31, 2013
Sherry Turkle — Alive Enough? Reflecting — Our Technology (Nov 15, 2012)
Each of us, in our everyday interactions, chooses between letting technology shape us and shaping it towards human purposes, even towards honoring what we hold dear. Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, is full of usable ideas — from how to declare email bankruptcy to teaching our children the rewards of solitude. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/alive-enough-reflecting-our-technology/63
Tue, December 31, 2013
Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad — No More Taking Sides (Nov 29, 2012)
Robi Damelin lost her son David to a Palestinian sniper. Ali Abu Awwad lost his older brother Yousef to an Israeli soldier. But, instead of clinging to traditional ideologies and turning their pain into more violence, they've decided to understand the other side — Israeli and Palestinian — by sharing their pain and their humanity. They tell of a gathering network of survivors who share their grief, their stories of loved ones, and their ideas for lasting peace. They don't want to be right; they want to be honest. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/no-more-taking-sides/134
Tue, December 31, 2013
Kate Braestrup — A Presence in the Wild (Dec 13, 2012)
Kate Braestrup is a chaplain to game wardens, often on search and rescue missions, in the wilds of Maine. She works, as she puts it, at hinges of human experience when lives alter unexpectedly — where loss, disaster, decency and beauty intertwine. Hear her wise and unusual take on life and death, lost and found. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/presence-wild/144
Tue, December 31, 2013
Jon Kabat-Zinn — Opening to Our Lives and a Science of Mindfulness (Dec 27, 2012)
Jon Kabat-Zinn has learned, through science and experience, about mindfulness as a way of life. This is wisdom with immediate relevance to the ordinary and extreme stresses of our time — from economic peril, to parenting, to life in a digital age. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/opening-our-lives/138
Sun, December 29, 2013
Tami Simon — Inner Life at Work: Business, Meditation, and Technology (May 30, 2013)
You might call Tami Simon a spiritual entrepreneur. She's built a successful multimedia publishing company with a mission to disseminate "spiritual wisdom" by diverse teachers and thinkers like Pema Chödrön and Eckhart Tolle, Daniel Goleman and Brené Brown. She offers compelling lessons on joining inner life with life in the workplace — and advice on spiritual practice with a mobile device.
Tue, December 24, 2013
Omid Safi and Seemi Bushra Ghazi — The Spirit of Islam (Jan 6, 2005)
We experience the religious thought and the spiritual vitality of two Muslims—male and female—both American and both with roots in ancient Islamic cultural, intellectual, and spiritual traditions. Their stories and ideas, music, and readings, evoke a sense of the richness of global Islamic spirituality and of some of its hidden nuances and beauty. They reveal how sound, music, and especially poetry offer a window onto the subtleties and humanity of Islamic religious experience. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirit-islam/226
Tue, December 24, 2013
Where Was God? (Sep 22, 2001)
Great religious minds reflect on tragedies surrounding September 11, 2001. As America moves beyond raw emotion and religious sentiment, this program explores theological and spiritual reflection for the long haul. A gathering of provocative reflections across a broad spectrum of faith, woven together with evocative sound and music. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/where-was-god/243
Fri, December 20, 2013
Walter Brueggemann — The Prophetic Imagination (Dec 19, 2013)
The people we later recognize as prophets, says Walter Brueggemann, are also poets who reframe what is at stake in chaotic times. A special voice addressing our changing lives and the deepest meaning of hope this season. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/prophetic-imagination-walter-brueggemann/475
Fri, December 13, 2013
Phil Donahue — Transformation, On-Screen and Off (Dec 12, 2013)
Talk show pioneer Phil Donahue opens up on his remarkable perspective on the last half century of America and who we are now. He shares with Krista Tippett his personal transformations on race, gender roles, and parenting in the dramatic era he captured on television. http://www.onbeing.org/program/phil-donahue-on-transformation-on-screen-and-off/6081
Wed, November 27, 2013
Vincent Harding and Phyllis Tickle — Racial Identity in the Emerging Church and the World
Emerging church elder Phyllis Tickle and civil rights veteran Vincent Harding in an honest and sometimes politically incorrect conversation on coming to terms with racial identity in the church and in the world. http://www.onbeing.org/program/racial-identity-in-the-emerging-church-and-the-world/6059
Mon, November 25, 2013
Martin Rees — Cosmic Origami and What We Don't Know
Some of the biggest philosophical and ethical questions of this century may be raised on scientific frontiers — as we gain a better understanding of the deep structure of space and time and the wilder "microworld." Astrophysicist Martin Rees paints a fascinating picture of how we might be changed by what we do not yet know: "If science teaches me anything, it teaches me that even simple things like an atom are fairly hard to understand. And that makes me skeptical of anyone who claims to have the last word or complete understanding of any deep aspect of reality." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/cosmic-or…-we-dont-know/250
Fri, November 08, 2013
Ira Byock — Contemplating Mortality (Nov 7, 2013)
What if we understand death as a developmental stage — like adolescence or mid-life? Dr. Ira Byock says we lose sight of "the remarkable value" of the time of life we call dying if we forget that it's always a personal and human event, and not just a medical one. From his place on this medical frontier, he shares how we can understand dying as a time of learning, repair, and completion of our lives. www.onbeing.org/program/contempla…ortality/11072013
Sun, October 27, 2013
Esther Sternberg — The Science of Healing Places
Who knew that the architect behind St. Paul's Cathedral was also an anatomist who diagrammed the human brain? Today, scientists of the brain are learning why our sensory experience in a place like a cathedral — the incense, the soaring music, the stained glass, and the light — is physiologically good for us: "What is it about beautiful vistas of mountains, about the infinite horizon of the ocean, about a cathedral? There are certainly physiological and neuroscientific bases to that feeling, and I am convinced — I know — that these things can be measured. And that's the exciting new frontier for me, to ask exactly that question." Esther Sternberg is an immunologist and a pioneer on this new frontier that's giving rise to disciplines like neuroimmunology and environmental psychology. Architects are working with scientists to imbue the spaces we move through — the sights, sounds, and smells of them — with active healing properties. And Esther Sternberg says all of us can create surroundings and even portable sensations to manage stress and tap our brain's own internal pharmacies. http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-science-of-healing-places/4856
Sat, October 19, 2013
David Sloan Wilson — Evolving a City
David Sloan Wilson believes that evolution is not just a description of how we got here. He says it can also be a tool kit for improving how we live together. He’s taken what he’s learned in studying evolution in animals and is now applying it to the behavior of groups in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. His goal is to help people behave pro-socially — at their best, and for the good of the whole. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolving-city/4720
Sat, September 21, 2013
Keith Devlin — The Joy of Math and Learning and What it Means to Be Human
Mathematical equations are like sonnets says Keith Devlin. And, the mathematician says that what most of us learn in school doesn’t begin to convey what mathematics is. Technology may free more of us to discover the wonder of mathematical thinking — as a reflection of the inner world of our minds. Keith Devlin began to learn this as a teenager and he’s been a math evangelist ever since: "It was as if I'd been stumbling around in a forest, and suddenly I've climbed to the top of a tree and looked out and thought, this is the most beautiful place in the world. You can't tell it when you're down in the trees, which I had been, but the moment you reach an elevation where it all falls into place and you can see the topographic display in front of you, then the beauty is incredible. And the moment I discovered it, I said, I want to study mathematics. And I've been studying it ever since." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/the-joy-of-math-keith-devlin-on-learning-and-what-it-means-to-be-human/5946
Tue, September 17, 2013
Arthur Zajonc — Holding Life Consciously (Sep 12, 2013)
What happens when you bring together science and poetry on something like color or light? Arthur Zajonc is a physicist and contemplative. And he says we can all investigate life as vigorously from the inside as from the outside. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/arthur-zajonc-on-holding-life-consciously/109
Tue, September 03, 2013
Natalie Batalha — Exoplanets and Love: Science That Connects Us to One Another (Aug 29, 2013)
http://www.onbeing.org/program/on-exoplanets-and-love/5029 For Natalie Batalha of NASA's Kepler Mission, it's just a matter of time before we look at the sky and know of planets where life exists. And that, she says, will transform our sense of ourselves: "When you look up at the sky on a very dark night at those stars or that crescent moon or whatever it is, what do you feel? You feel wonder, of course. You feel humility. But I think you also feel lonely, small, insignificant. There's a profound sense of loneliness, or just the universe is so big and I'm so small. But imagine in the near-term future, your grandchild or your great-grandchild looks up in the sky and his mother can point to a star and say, that star right there? That star has a planet just like Earth, and it harbors life. That's a different perspective. That's completely different when we can look up in the sky and know that. It's a game-changer." A luminous voice of how we explore the heavens now — bringing the exuberance of science closer to home to us all. "We are extending our senses out into the cosmos in a very real, tangible way, and that makes it so much easier to capture our imagination, to inspire us. Through the Curiosity Rover, we are standing there in our hiking boots on the surface of Mars. Man, I can practically hear the crunching of the dirt underneath my feet. It feels like I could bend down and pick up a rock and toss it over that hill over there, you know? So in a very real way, these experiments are extending our senses out into the cosmos."
Fri, August 16, 2013
Kwame Anthony Appiah — Sidling Up to Difference: Social Change and Moral Revolutions (Aug 15 2013)
How can unimaginable social change happen in a world of strangers? Kwame Anthony Appiah is a philosopher who studies ethics and his parents' marriage helped inspire the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." In a tense moment in American life, he has refreshing advice on simply living with difference. http://www.onbeing.org/program/sidling-difference/175
Thu, August 08, 2013
Sylvia Earle — Her Deepness (Aug 8, 2013)
Sylvia Earle has done something no one else has — walked solo on the bottom of the sea, under a quarter mile of water. She tells what she saw — and what she has learned — about the giant, living system that is the ocean. And, she explains why seeing a shark is a sign for hope. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/her-deepness-oceanographer-sylvia-earle/4673
Sun, August 04, 2013
David Montgomery — Reading The Rocks: Flood Stories and Deep Time (Aug 1, 2013)
The push and pull between religion and science has shaped advances in geology from the beginning. Geomorphologist David Montgomery set out to debunk Noah’s Flood; instead he discovered this biblical story was the plate tectonics of its day. He tells us how the evolution of landscapes and geological processes shape ecology and humanity. And, how we should read rocks for the stories they tell about who we are and where we came from: "Geology really is, essentially, the scientific creation story. How did it really work? What can we tell from the nature of the universe around us that would inform us in our thinking about how we got to the place we are now? I think that really is central to our sort of view of ourselves as a species, our place in the universe, as well as sort of your personal relationship to the universe. What am I doing here?" See more at www.onbeing.org/program/reading-the-rocks/5851
Mon, July 29, 2013
David Gushee and Frances Kissling — Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue (July 25, 2013)
No issue in America is more intractable than abortion. Or is it? The issue of abortion has again raised its divisive head. Lost in that specter is the enduring fact that most of us don't identify with the absolute positions of always for, or always against, abortion. We never start our public discussions in that nuanced moral center. We wonder why this issue remains so contentious — and what might be at stake in it for us as a culture — that gets hidden by political stalemate? In this podcast, two people demonstrate a different way forward is possible. Frances Kissling, a longtime reproductive rights activist: "Abortion very late in pregnancy, abortion of disabled fetuses, these to me are very, very complicated questions. Even though I don't think fetuses have an absolute right to life, I think fetuses have value. And I don't think you can make the fetus invisible." And David Gushee, a Christian ethicist: "A concern I have about my own side is, what the main activists in the pro-life or anti-abortion community want is an overturn of Roe vs. Wade. I am not at all convinced that if that were to actually happen that they would like the world that they would see on the other side." A conversation that doesn't begin or end in the predictable places. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pro-life-pro-choice-pro-dialogue/4863
Thu, June 27, 2013
Meredith Monk's Voice (June 27, 2013)
http://www.onbeing.org/program/meredith-monks-voice/1398 Singer and composer Meredith Monk is a kind of archeologist of the human voice. She says that "the voice could be like the body" — flexible and fluid with practice. Through music as through meditation, the longtime Buddhist practitioner pushes the boundaries of what we can do without words.
Tue, June 18, 2013
Sarah Kay's Way with Words (June 13, 2013)
www.onbeing.org/program/sarah-kays-way-words/4548 Sarah Kay says that listening is the better part of speaking. She's a spoken word poet in her twenties who is inspiring teenagers around the world — with the way she uses words: "I like words, I love strange words, I love words that mean exactly what I need them to mean, and the word flux, when I found that word, I loved the way it was fluffy but it was sharp, it was just everything that I wanted and also, my life is just eternally in flux and just has been and probably always will be." Sarah Kay says her job description is rediscovering wonder, and rediscovering how language and listening make impossible connections between people.
Mon, June 10, 2013
S. James Gates — Uncovering the Codes for Reality (June 6, 2013)
Are we in the matrix? Physicist S. James Gates reveals why string theory stretches our imaginations about the nature of reality. Also, how failure makes us more complete, and imagination makes us more knowledgeable. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/uncovering-codes-reality/1457
Wed, May 22, 2013
Andrew Zolli — A Shift to Humility: Resilience and Expanding the Edge of Change (May 16, 2013)
Disruption is around every corner by way of globally connected economies, inevitable superstorms, and technology’s endless reinvention. But most of us were born into a culture which aspired to solve all problems. How do we support people and create systems that know how to recover, persist, and even thrive in the face of change? Andrew Zolli introduces "resilience thinking," a new generation’s wisdom for a world of constant change.
Fri, May 10, 2013
Sylvia Boorstein — What We Nurture (May 9, 2013)
For Mother's Day, the celebrated Jewish-Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, mother, and grandmother: Sylvia Boorstein. The best way to nurture children's inner lives, she says, is by taking care of our own inner selves for their sake. At a public event in suburban Detroit, Krista Tippett draws out the warmth and wisdom of Ms. Boorstein, and, in a light-hearted moment that is an audience pleaser, Ms. Boorstein shares what GPS might teach us about "recalculating" and our own inner equanimity. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/what-we-nurture-with-sylvia-boorstein/242
Thu, April 18, 2013
Lawrence Krauss — Our Origins and the Weight of Space
One of the values of science is to make us uncomfortable says Lawrence Krauss. The particle physicist explains why we should all care about dark energy and the Higgs Boson particle. Science literacy matters, and, more importantly, he suggests we should take joy in science — just as we cultivate enjoyment of arts we may not completely comprehend. http://www.onbeing.org/program/our-origins-and-the-weight-of-space-with-lawrence-krauss/5216
Thu, April 18, 2013
Alan Rabinowitz — A Voice for the Animals (April 18, 2013)
A profound stutter as a child left Alan Rabinowitz virtually unable to communicate and to prefer animals to people. Now a conservationist of tigers and jaguars, an explorer of the world's last wild places, he has extraordinary insight into both animals and the human condition. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/voice-animals/60
Fri, March 01, 2013
Thupten Jinpa — Translating the Dalai Lama (Feb 21, 2013)
Esoteric teachings on reincarnation and consciousness; simple teachings on compassion and ethics. Geshe Thupten Jinpa is a man who finishes the Dalai Lama’s English sentences. Meet this philosopher and former monk, now a husband and father of two daughters, and hear what happens when the ancient tradition embodied in the Dalai Lama meets science and life. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/translating-dalai-lama/235
Thu, February 14, 2013
Ursula King, Andrew Revkin + David Sloan Wilson — Teilhard de Chardin's Planetary Mind
The coming stage of evolution, Teilhard de Chardin said, won't be driven by physical adaptation but by human consciousness, creativity, and spirit. We visit with his biographer Ursula King, and we experience his ideas energizing New York Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/teilhard-de-chardins-planetary-mind-and-our-spiritual-evolution/4965
Thu, August 23, 2012
Joanna Brooks — Mormons Demystified (Aug 23, 2012)
From The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to CNN, Joanna Brooks has become a go-to voice during our national inspection of Mormonism in this presidential campaign. As Mitt Romney makes history, we revisit our personal and revealing conversation with the Ask Mormon Girl blogger. She opens a window on Mormonism as an evolving and far from monolithic faith.
Fri, July 20, 2012
Terry Tempest Williams — The Vitality of the Struggle (July 19, 2012)
Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist and writer, a biologist by training with a literary mind. She comes from a long Mormon lineage in Utah. She draws political, spiritual and creative inspiration from her experience of the interior American west. She offers stories of neighborly collaboration that turns into environmental protection, and the value that comes from vitriolic disagreement inside families. See more at: www.onbeing.org/program/vitality-struggle/233
Fri, July 13, 2012
Mustafa Akyol — Religion, Democracy, and the New Turkey (July 12, 2012)
There's a country between Europe's debt crisis and the Arab Spring, where democracy is valued and the economy is growing. It's Turkey. Mustafa Akyol gives a fresh perspective on this new model of religion and democracy.
Wed, July 04, 2012
Jacob Needleman — The Inward Work of Democracy (June 28, 2012)
Krista Tippett speaks with philosopher Jacob Needleman. As new democracies are struggling around the world, it’s easy to forget that U.S. democracy was shaped by trial and error. A conversation about the “inward work” of democracy — the conscience that shaped the American experiment. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/inward-work-democracy-jacob-needleman/222#sthash.uEEZSvS1.dpuf
Thu, June 14, 2012
Richard Davidson — Investigating Healthy Minds (June 14, 2012)
Once upon a time we assumed the brain stops developing when we're young. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson helped overturn this idea by studying the brains of meditating Buddhist monks. Now he's working on conditions like ADHD and autism. He focuses not on fixing what is wrong, but on rewiring our minds with life-enriching behaviors.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Cal DeWitt + Majora Carter — Discovering Where We Live: Reimagining Environmentalism (Jan 17, 2008)
Environmentalism and climate change are hot topics; yet they're still often imagined as the territory of scientists, expert activists, and those who can afford to be environmentally conscious. We discover two people who are transforming the ecology of their immediate worlds: biologist Calvin DeWitt in Dunn, Wisconsin and Majora Carter in New York's South Bronx. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/discovering-where-we-live-reimagining-environmentalism/87
Fri, May 25, 2012
Douglas Johnston — Diplomacy and Religion in the 21st Century (Jan 3, 2008)
The greatest threat in the post-Cold War world, says Douglas Johnston, is the prospective marriage of religious extremism with weapons of mass destruction. Yet the U.S. spends most of its time, resources, and weapons fighting the symptoms of this threat, not the cause. The diplomacy of the future, he is showing, must engage religion as part of the strategic solution to global conflicts. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/diplomacy-and-religion-21st-century/86
Fri, May 25, 2012
The New Evangelical Leaders: Part 2 - Rick and Kay Warren (December 6, 2007)
The second in a two-part series on influential leaders who are reshaping Evangelical Christianity from within progressive and conservative circles. The best-selling author of "The Purpose Driven Life," Rick Warren and his wife Kay lead one of the largest churches in the U.S. They are now partnering in global ventures to fight AIDS and poverty.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Jim Wallis — The New Evangelical Leaders, Part I (Nov 29, 2007)
Evangelical Christianity has no single, central authority, but it does have guiding figures in every generation. Progressive social activist Jim Wallis has become something of a national celebrity, proposing a new agenda for religion in politics in what he calls the "post-Religious Right era." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/new-evangelical-leaders-part-i-jim-wallis/212
Fri, May 25, 2012
Nathan Dungan — Money and Moral Balance (Nov 8, 2007)
Many of us are gearing up to spend more money than we actually have for the upcoming holiday season, which has deep roots in religion. We explore the turmoil many of us experience with money in our day-to-day lives — and how we might work towards a moral and practical balance for ourselves and the next generation. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/money-and-moral-balance/131/
Fri, May 25, 2012
Michael McCullough — Getting Revenge and Forgiveness (May 24, 2012)
Michael McCullough describes science that helps us comprehend how revenge came to have a purpose in human life. At the same time, he stresses, science is also revealing that human beings are more instinctively equipped for forgiveness than we've perhaps given ourselves credit for. Knowing this suggests ways to calm the revenge instinct in ourselves and others and embolden the forgiveness intuition.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Matthew Sanford — The Body's Grace (May 3, 2012)
Matthew Sanford says he's never seen anyone live more deeply in their body -- in all of its grace and all of its flaws -- without becoming more compassionate toward all of life. He is a renowned yoga teacher, and he has been paralyzed from the chest down since he was 13. He teaches yoga to the able-bodied and adapts yoga for people with ailments and disabilities, including military veterans. With Krista Tippett, he shares his story on finding his own way in to what we call the mind-body connection, and what might be discovered there. His wisdom holds lessons for how all of us can fully inhabit our bodies across the span of our lives. An unusual take on the mind-body connection with author and yoga teacher Matthew Sanford. He's been a paraplegic since the age of 13. He shares his wisdom for us all on knowing the strength and grace of our bodies even in the face of illness, aging, and death. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/bodys-grace-matthew-sanfords-story/185
Fri, May 25, 2012
Ernie LaPointe and Cedric Good House — Reimagining Sitting Bull, Tatanka Iyotake (April 19, 2012)
Sitting Bull is best known for defeating General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But for many Lakota, his resistance to federal appropriation of sacred lands reflects humility towards the land and compassion towards his people -- with his death 120 years ago being his ultimate moment of sacrifice. We explore Sitting Bull's spiritual legacy as a force for identity and healing among the living.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Vigen Guroian — Restoring the Senses: Gardening and Orthodox Easter (April 5, 2012)
An understanding of Easter from inside the Armenian Orthodox tradition. Vigen Guroian experiences Easter as as a call to our senses. He's a theologian who contemplates the grand ideas of incarnation, death, and eternity as they are revealed in life and in his garden. Krista Tippett explores his religious way of being in this Lenten season that is both mystical and literally down to earth.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Fatemeh Keshavarz — The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi (March 8, 2012)
The 13th-century mystic and poet Rumi is a best-selling author in the modern West who has long influenced Islamic thought and spirituality, though his Muslim identity is often lost in translation. Enter the exuberant world of Rumi with Iranian-American poet and scholar Fatemeh Keshavarz. Delve into why Rumi matters in our time and how he understood searching and restlessness as a kind of arrival. And through a lush production of his words and poetry -- layered in Persian and English -- experience how he saw every form of human love as a mirror of the divine. And, how Rumi inspired the whirling dervishes. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ecstatic-faith-rumi/189
Fri, May 25, 2012
Nicholas Kristof — Journalism and Compassion (Feb 9, 2012)
Journalism can make us care -- or it can numb us to human suffering. Nicholas Kristof's columns in The New York Times wrap hard news inside human stories with broad appeal. Krista talks with him about the lessons of his life covering some of the worst atrocities in the world. He draws on insights of neuroscience, for example, to pierce through compassion fatigue.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Tiya Miles — Toward Living Memory (Feb 2, 2012)
For Black History Month: public historian Tiya Miles. She's a MacArthur "genius" who's unearthing an especially painful chapter of the American experience -- the intersecting history of African-Americans and Native Americans, and the little-known narratives that Cherokee landowners held black slaves. Even with history this difficult, Tiya Miles shows us the possibility of stretching the canvas of the past wide enough to hold both hard truths and healing. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/toward-living-memory/1344
Fri, May 25, 2012
John Paul Lederach — The Art of Peace (Jan 12, 2012)
What happens when people transcend violence while living in it? John Paul Lederach has spent three decades mediating peace and change in 25 countries — from Nepal to Colombia and Sierra Leone.. He shifts the language and lens of the very notion of conflict resolution. He says, for example, that enduring progress takes root not with large numbers of people, but with relationships between unlikely people. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/art-peace/182
Fri, May 25, 2012
Scott-Martin Kosofsky — Legends To Live By (Dec 15, 2011)
Could a Yiddish text from the Middle Ages serve as a guide to living now? Book composer and typographer Scott-Martin Kosofsky revives unlikely sources of customs for leading a modern life and marking sacred time. For Hanukkah and all the seasons upon us.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Diane Winston — Monsters We Love: TV's Pop Culture Theodicy (Dec 1, 2011)
Loving vampires. Amoral zombies. And righteous serial killers. Shows about monsters, human and otherwise, are captivating TV watchers of all ages. Diane Winston, a religion and media watcher (and TV aficionado) says we shouldn't be surprised by these series in-your-face themes of God, meaning, and re-enchanting the world.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Ellen Davis — The Poetry of Creatures (Nov 24, 2011)
Biblical scholar Ellen Davis is helping to shape a new approach and way of thinking about human domination of the Earth and its creatures. With her friend, the farmer and poet Wendell Berry, they speak to our collective grief at destruction of the natural world and nourish a 'chastened' yet 'tenacious' hope. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/poetry-creatures/117
Fri, May 25, 2012
Paul Raushenbush — Occupying the Gospel (Nov 17, 2011)
Paul Raushenbush opens up a forgotten impulse of social activism in the DNA of American Christianity -- the "social gospel" led by his great grandfather, Walter Rauschenbusch a century ago.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Matthieu Ricard — The Happiest Man in the World (Oct 27, 2011)
A renowned Buddhist teacher and author, Matthieu Ricard trained as a cell biologist and is now part of the Dalai Lama's ongoing dialogue with scientists. We'll explore why he's been called the happiest man in the world, and how he understands spirituality as "contemplative science."
Fri, May 25, 2012
Avivah Zornberg — The Genesis of Desire (Oct 6, 2011)
Celebrated Torah scholar Avivah Zornberg is the daughter and granddaughter of rabbis of East European lineage. She's also steeped in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. She connects deep and unexpected currents between the Bible and the lived situation of the reader.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Sari Nusseibeh — The Evolution of Change (Sep 15, 2011)
Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosopher and president of Al-Quds University, comes from a family that has been in Jerusalem for 1300 years. His personal story enfolds layers of history that are shaping current history in the making.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Hendrick Hertzberg, Pankaj Mishra and Serene Jones — Remembering Forward (Sep 8, 2011)
In the days and months after 9/11, St. Paul's Chapel became the hub where thousands of volunteers and rescue workers received round-the-clock care. It was a moving setting to explore how 9/11 changed us as a people — and to ponder the inward work of living with enduring grief and unfolding understanding. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/who-do-we-want-become-remembering-forward-decade-after-911/257
Fri, May 25, 2012
Richard Mouw — Restoring Political Civility (Aug 18, 2011)
Richard Mouw challenges his fellow conservative Christians to civility in public discourse. He offers historical as well as spiritual perspective on American Evangelicals' navigation of disagreement, fear, and truth. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-political-civility-evangelical-view/163
Fri, May 25, 2012
Frances Kissling — Listening Beyond Life and Choice (Aug 11, 2011)
Frances Kissling is known for her longtime activism on the abortion issue but has devoted her energy more in recent years to real relationship and new conversations across that bitter divide. She's learned, she's written, about the courage to be vulnerable in front of those with whom we passionately disagree. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/listening…fe-and-choice/123
Fri, May 25, 2012
Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder — Autism and Humanity (July 14, 2011)
One child in every 110 in the U.S. is now diagnosed to be somewhere on the spectrum of autism. We step back from public controversies over causes and cures and explore the mystery and meaning of autism in one family's life, and in history and society. Our guests say that life with their child with autism has deepened their understanding of human nature — of disability, and of creativity, intelligence, and accomplishment. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/autism-and-humanity/70
Fri, May 25, 2012
Amahl Bishara and Nidal Al-Azraq — Pleasure More Than Hope (July 7, 2011)
Did you know that the sacred city of Bethlehem lies within the West Bank? And, inside its borders, you'll find something unexpected -- a close-knit neighborhood where generations of people have created a new life for themselves. Amahl Bishara and Nidal Al-Azraq show us something rare that we don't see in the news about refugee camps -- the quiet cycles of everyday life. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pleasure-more-hope/13
Fri, May 25, 2012
Anthea Butler and Arlene Sánchez-Walsh — Reviving Sister Aimee (June 9, 2011)
A look back at the closest thing the early 20th century may have had to Oprah Winfrey. The flamboyant Pentecostal preacher Aimee Semple McPherson was a multimedia sensation and a powerful female religious leader long before most of Christianity considered such a thing. The contradictions and passions of her life are a window into the world of global Pentecostalism that touches as many as half a billion lives today.
Fri, May 25, 2012
Yossi Klein Halevi — Thin Places, Thick Realities (May 12, 2011)
A new show from Jerusalem with American-Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, who says Jerusalem is a place where the essential human story plays itself out with particular intensity. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/thin-places-thick-realities/14
Fri, May 25, 2012
Mohammad Darawshe — Children of Both Identities (April 28, 2011)
Mohammad Darawshe is Arab with an Israeli passport -- a Muslim Palestinian citizen of the Jewish state. Like 20 percent of Israel's population, he is, as he puts it, a child of both identities. He brings an unexpected way of seeing inside the Middle Eastern present and future. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/children-both-identities/12
Fri, May 25, 2012
Avivah Zornberg — Exodus, Cargo of Hidden Stories (April 14, 2011)
The biblical Exodus story is no simple story of heroes and villains; it's a complex picture of the possibilities and ironies of human passion and human freedom. Avivah Zornberg, author of "The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus," brings the text to life through the ancient Jewish art of Midrash. If you're not familiar with Exodus, you're in for a deeply sensual experience; and, even if you're well-versed in the text, you just might be surprised. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/exodus-cargo-hidden-stories/96
Fri, May 25, 2012
John Polkinghorne — Quarks and Creation (Jan 13, 2011)
Science and religion are often pitted against one another; but how do they complement, rather than contradict, one another? Physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne applies the deepest insights of modern physics to think about how the world fundamentally works, and how the universe might make space for prayer. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/quarks-and-creation/148
Fri, May 25, 2012
Evolving "Faith" (Dec 30, 2010)
At the turn of the year, we look at how American culture's encounter with religious ideas and people has evolved in the past decade -- and this radio project with it. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/evolving-faith/95
Fri, May 25, 2012
Joe Carter — The Legacy of the African-American Spiritual (Dec 23, 2010)
The African-American spiritual is the source from which gospel, jazz, blues, and hip-hop evolved. We celebrate the life of Joe Carter, who explored the meaning of the Negro spiritual in word and song -- through its hidden meanings, as well as its beauty, lament, and hope. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/joe-carter-and-legacy-african-american-spiritual/113
Fri, May 25, 2012
Darius Rejali — The Long Shadow of Torture (Nov 4, 2010)
One of the world's leading experts on torture, Iranian-American political scientist Darius Rejali discusses, in particular, how democracies change torture and are changed by it. In the wake of Wikileaks revelations about torture in U.S.-occupied Iraq, we explore how his knowledge might deepen our public discourse about such practices -- and inform our collective reckoning with consequences yet to unfold. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/long-shadow-torture/206
Fri, May 25, 2012
Doris Taylor — Stem Cells, Untold Stories (Sep 30, 2010)
Using stem cells, Doris Taylor brought the heart of a dead animal back to life and might one day revolutionize human organ transplantation. She takes us beyond lightning rod issues and into an unfolding frontier where science is learning how stem cells work reparatively in every body at every age. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/stem-cells-untold-stories/178
Fri, May 25, 2012
Sharon Brous — Days of Awe (Sep 2, 2010)
We'll delve into the world and meaning of the approaching Jewish High Holy Days -- ten days that span the new year of Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur's rituals of atonement. Sharon Brous, a young rabbi in L.A., is one voice in a Jewish spiritual renaissance that is taking many forms across the U.S. The vast majority of her congregation are people in their 20s and 30s, who, she says, are making life-giving connections between ritual, personal transformation, and relevance in the world. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/days-awe/82
Fri, May 25, 2012
Jacqueline Novogratz — A Different Kind of Capitalism (Aug 19, 2010)
The devastation of the Haiti earthquakes and the lack of infrastructure for responding to the disaster have deepened an ongoing debate over foreign aid, international development, and helping the poorest of the world's poor. Jacqueline Novogratz, whose Acumen Fund is reinventing that landscape with what it calls "patient capitalism," is charting a third way between investment for profit and aid for free. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/different-kind-capitalism/50
Fri, May 25, 2012
Bill McKibben — The Moral Math of Climate Change (Aug 5, 2010)
A conversation about climate change and moral imagination with Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist and writer who has been ahead of the curve on this issue since he wrote The End of Nature in 1989. We explore his evolving perspective on human responsibility in a changing natural world. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/moral-math-climate-change/209
Fri, May 25, 2012
Rachel Naomi Remen — Listening Generously (July 29, 2010)
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen's lifelong struggle with a debilitating illness has shaped the way she practices medicine, and her views about illness and well being. As a best-selling author, counselor to other physicians, and a pioneer in integrative medicine, she speaks about the art of listening to patients, the difference between curing and healing, and how our losses actually help us to live. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/listening-generously/124
Thu, May 24, 2012
Barbara Kingsolver — The Ethics of Eating (July 15, 2010)
Barbara Kingsolver describes an adventure her family undertook to spend one year eating primarily what they could grow or raise themselves. As a citizen and mother more than an expert, she turned her life towards questions many of us are asking. Food, she says, is a "rare moral arena" in which the ethical choice is often the pleasurable choice. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ethics-eating/191
Thu, May 24, 2012
Shane Claiborne — A Monastic Revolution (July 1, 2010)
Shane Claiborne is a leading spirit in a gathering movement of young people known as the New Monastics. Emerging from the edges of Evangelical Christianity, they are patterning their lives in response to the needs of the poor -- and the detachment they see in our culture's vision of adulthood. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/monastic-revolution/53
Thu, May 24, 2012
Andrew Freear — An Architecture of Decency (June 3, 2010)
Auburn's Rural Studio in western Alabama draws architectural students into the design and construction of homes and public spaces in some of the poorest counties. They're creating beautiful and economical structures that are not only unique but nurture sustainability of the natural world as of human dignity. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/architecture-decency/66
Thu, May 24, 2012
Columba Stewart and Getatchew Haile — Preserving Words and Worlds (May 6, 2010)
Saint John's University and Abbey in rural Minnesota houses a monastic library that rescues writings from across the centuries and across the world. There are worlds in this place on palm leaf and papyrus, in microfilm and pixels. And the relevance of the past to the present is itself revealed in a new light. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/preserving-words-and-worlds/145
Thu, May 24, 2012
Mercedes Doretti — Laying the Dead to Rest (April 15, 2010)
With an Argentinean scientist, we explore the human landscape of forensic sciences and its emergence as a tool for human rights. Doretti has unearthed bones and stories of the dead and "the disappeared" in more than 30 countries, including victims of Argentina's Dirty War, over two decades. She shares her perspective on reparation, the need to bury our dead, and the many facets of justice. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/laying-dead-rest/120
Thu, May 24, 2012
Mayfair Yang — China's Hidden Spiritual Landscape (April 8, 2010)
A filmmaker and scholar gives us a parallel story to the ubiquitous news of China's economy and politics. Mayfair Yang discusses the ancient and reemerging traditions of reverence and ritual — revealing background to its approach to Tibet. And, she tells us how China gleaned some of its recent dismissive attitudes towards religion from the West. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/chinas-hidden-spiritual-landscape/78
Thu, May 24, 2012
Mehmet Oz — Heart and Soul (March 18, 2010)
The word "healing" means "to make whole." But historically, Western medicine has taken a divided view of human health. It has stressed medical treatments of biological ailments. That may be changing -- Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon, is part of a new generation of doctors who are taking medicine to new technological and spiritual frontiers. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/heart-and-soul-mehmet-oz/108
Thu, May 24, 2012
Robert Wright — The Evolution of God (March 4, 2010)
Robert Wright charts an intellectual path beyond the faith versus reason debate. He takes a relentlessly logical look at the history of religion, exposing its contradictions. Yet Wright also traces something "revelatory" moving through human history. In this public conversation -- recorded before a live audience -- we explore the story he tells, the import he sees in it for our culture, and where it has personally taken him. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-god/193
Thu, May 24, 2012
Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies — Einstein's God (Feb 25, 2010)
Albert Einstein's quip that "God does not play dice with the universe," was about quantum physics, not a statement of faith. But he did ponder the relationship between science and religion and his sense of "the order deeply hidden behind everything." With guests Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies we explore Einstein's wisdom on mystery, eternity, and the mind of God. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/einsteins-god/90
Thu, May 24, 2012
E. Ethelbert Miller — Black & Universal (Feb 11, 2010)
E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet and self-described literary activist at Howard University. His writing and thought have pushed at the parameters of the evolving narrative of blackness -- determined not by the color of skin, but by the color of ideas. We'll explore his poetry along with the words and art of others including Malcolm X, Charles Johnson, Lucille Clifton, and John Coltrane. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/black-universal/73
Thu, May 24, 2012
Ed Husain — Reflections of a Former Islamist Extremist (Jan 14, 2010)
British activist Ed Husain was seduced, at the age of 16, by revolutionary Islamist ideals that flourished at the heart of educated British culture. Yet he later shrank back from radicalism after coming close to a murder and watching people he loved become suicide bombers. He dug deeper into Islamic spirituality, and now offers a fresh and daring perspective on the way forward. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/reflections-former-islamist-extremist/150
Thu, May 24, 2012
Anoushka Shankar, Stephen Mitchell, and Roberta Bondi — Approaching Prayer (Dec 31, 2009)
Americans are religious and non-religious, devout and irreverent. But in astonishing numbers, across that spectrum, most of us say that we pray. We explore the subject of prayer, how it sounds, and what it means in three different traditions and lives. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/approaching-prayer/67
Thu, May 24, 2012
Karen Armstrong — Freelance Monotheism (Nov 5, 2009)
Karen Armstrong speaks about her progression from a disillusioned and damaged young nun into, in her words, a "freelance monotheist." She's a formidable thinker and scholar, but as a theologian she calls herself an amateur — noting that the Latin root of the word "amateur" means a love of one's subject. Seven years in a strict religious order nearly snuffed out her ability to think about faith at all. Here, we hear the story behind Armstrong's developing ideas about God. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/freelance-monotheism-karen-armstrong/197
Thu, May 24, 2012
Malka Haya Fenyvesi and Aziza Hasan — Curiosity Over Assumptions (Oct 15, 2009)
We shine a light on two young leaders of a new generation of grassroots Muslim-Jewish encounter in Los Angeles. They're innovating templates of practical relationship that work with reality, acknowledge questions and conflict, yet resolve not to be enemies — whatever the political future of the Middle East may hold. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/curiosity-over-assumptions-interreligiosity-meets-new-generation/81
Thu, May 24, 2012
Eckhart Tolle — The Power of Now (Oct 8, 2009)
One of today's most influential spiritual teachers shares his youthful experience of depression and despair -- suffering that led him to his own spiritual breakthrough, and ultimately, freedom and peace of mind. He also explicates his view of what he calls "the pain body" -- the accumulated emotional pain that may influence us and our relationships in negative ways. And Tolle talks about spirit and God, and what those concepts mean to him. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/power-eckhart-tolles-now/217
Thu, May 24, 2012
David Treuer — Language and Meaning, an Ojibwe Story (Oct 1, 2009)
Novelist and translator David Treuer is helping to compile the first practical grammar of the Ojibwe language. He describes an unfolding experience of how language forms what makes us human. Some memories and realities, he has found, can only be carried forward in time by Ojibwe. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/language-and-meaning-ojibwe-story/118
Thu, May 24, 2012
Living Islam (Sep 24, 2009)
Nine Muslims, in their own words, reveal a creative convergence of Islamic spirituality and American identity that is unfolding, largely unnoticed, in the United States. A lawyer turned playwright, a teacher who's a lesbian, a retired federal prosecutor -- all giving shape to the nature and meaning of Muslim identity, and sharing how tricky it can be to unravel Islamic religious tradition from the many cultural traditions. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/living-islam/126
Thu, May 24, 2012
Binyavanga Wainaina — The Ethics of Aid: One Kenyan's Perspective (Aug 27, 2009)
We explore the complex ethics of global aid with a young writer from Kenya, Binyavanga Wainaina. He is among a rising generation of African voices who bring a cautionary perspective to the morality and efficacy behind many Western initiatives to abolish poverty and speed development in Africa. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ethics-aid-one-kenyans-perspective/190
Thu, May 24, 2012
Mary Doria Russell — The Novelist as God (Aug 20, 2009)
Mary Doria Russell has grappled with large moral and religious questions on and off the page. We discover what she discerned -- in the act of creating a new universe -- about God and about dilemmas of evil, doubt, and free will. The ultimate moral of any life and any event, she believes, only shows itself across generations. And so the novelist, like God, she says, paints with the brush of time. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/novelist-god/215
Thu, May 24, 2012
David Brooks and E.J. Dionne — Obama's Theologian: Niebuhr and the American Present (Aug 13, 2009)
President Obama has cited Reinhold Niebuhr's teachings as significant in shaping his ideas about politics and governance. In a public conversation, we discuss the great public theologian's legacy and ideas -- and what influence they may play in the future of American politics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obamas-theologian-david-brooks-and-ej-dionne-reinhold-niebuhr-and-american-present/136
Thu, May 24, 2012
James Prosek — Fishing with Mystery (Aug 6, 2009)
James Prosek is an artist, fly-fisher, author, and environmental activist who has always, as he puts it, found God "through the theater of nature." From a young age he has been fascinated by trout and now eel -- which he sees as "mystical creatures" -- and he's captured them literally and artistically, by way of both angling and paint. We explore the sense of meaning and mystery he has developed along the way, including his concern with how we humans limit our sense of other creatures by the names we give them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/fishing-mystery/100
Thu, May 24, 2012
Repossessing Virtue: Wise Voices from Religion, Science, Industry and the Arts (July 30, 2009)
Last fall we began to conduct an online conversation parallel to but distinct from our culture's more sustained focus on economic scenarios. For in each of our lives, whoever we are, very personal scenarios are unfolding that confront us with core questions of what matters to us and what sustains us. We made a list of our guests across the years who we thought might speak to this in fresh and compelling ways. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-wise-voices-religion-science-industry-and-arts/162
Thu, May 24, 2012
Parker Palmer — Repossessing Virtue: Economic Crisis, Morality, and Meaning (July 23, 2009)
We explore human and spiritual aspects of economic downturn with a wise public intellectual of our time, the Quaker author and educator Parker Palmer. He works with people from all walks of life at the intersection of spiritual, professional, and social change, and stresses the need to acknowledge the inner life of human beings as a source of reality and power. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-parker-palmer-economic-crisis-morality-and-meaning/161
Thu, May 24, 2012
Diane Winston — TV and Parables of Our Time (July 16, 2009)
Diane Winston appreciates good television, studies it, and brings many of its creators into her religion and media classes at the University of Southern California. In what some have called a renaissance in television drama, we examine how TV is helping us tell our story and work through great confusions in contemporary life. And, we play clips from "The Wire," House," "Lost," and "Battlestar Galactica". See more at www.onbeing.org/program/tv-and-parables-our-time/237
Thu, May 24, 2012
Paul Zak — The Science of Trust: Economics and Virtue (July 9, 2009)
In a few breathtaking months, we've culturally moved from seeing Wall Street as an icon of thriving civil society to discussing its workings with book titles like "House of Cards" and "Animal Spirits." As part of our ongoing Repossessing Virtue series, we'll talk to pioneering neuroeconomist Paul Zak. We look at what science is learning about trust, fair play, and empathy -- and what these qualities have to do with human character and economics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/science-trust-economics-and-virtue/223
Thu, May 24, 2012
Joshua DuBois — Obama's Faith-Based Office (May 28, 2009)
A live public conversation with Joshua DuBois -- the 26 year-old political strategist and Pentecostal Minister who is heading the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Obama White House. We'll explore what is being retained from the Bush years, what will change -- and how the experience of the Obama campaign shaped Joshua DuBois' vision of what is possible. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obamas-faith-based-office-meeting-joshua-dubois/135
Thu, May 24, 2012
Vali Nasr — The Sunni-Shia Divide and the Future of Islam (May 21, 2009)
We seek fresh insight into the history and the human and religious dynamics of Islam's Sunni-Shia divide. Our guest Vali Nasr says that it is not so different from dynamics in periods of Western Christian history. But he says that by bringing the majority Shia to power in Iraq, the U.S. has changed the religious dynamics of the Middle East. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/sunni-shia-divide-and-future-islam/231
Thu, May 24, 2012
Repossessing Virtue: Living Differently, Beyond Economic Crisis (May 14, 2009)
A new installment in our ongoing series, Repossessing Virtue, bringing the voices of our listeners into the conversation we've been building online and on-air since the economic downturn began last year. Many are grappling with the shame that comes in American culture with the loss of a job, and many are seeking community in old places and new. For some, economic instability -- a kind of life on the edge -- is not new. They've been cultivating virtues of patience, self-examination, service and good humor that might help us all. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-living-differently-beyond-economic-crisis/125
Thu, May 24, 2012
Parker Palmer, Andrew Solomon, and Anita Barrows — The Soul in Depression (Feb 26, 2009)
As a society, we're increasingly aware of the many faces of depression, and we've become conversant in the language of psychological analysis of depression and medical treatment for it. But there is a growing body of literature by people who have struggled with depression and found it to be a lesson in the nature of the human soul. In this program you'll hear intimate conversations with author Andrew Solomon, Quaker activist and educator Parker Palmer, and poet and psychologist Anita Barrows on their lived and spiritually edifying experiences with depression. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/soul-depression/224
Thu, May 24, 2012
James Moore — Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Darwin (Feb 5, 2009)
As the bicentennial of Darwin's birth is celebrated, we seek to understand the world that formed him, and what his observations about the natural world really said about God. Darwin took religion seriously, but he understood creation as an unfolding process. He rejected the Victorian idea of a God who had fixed every detail -- including every social flaw and injustice -- at the beginning of time. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-and-wonder-understanding-charles-darwin/94
Thu, May 24, 2012
Pankaj Mishra — The Buddha in the World (Jan 22, 2009)
A few years ago, journalist Pankaj Mishra pursued the social relevance of the Buddha's thought across India and Europe, Afganistan and America. He emerged with a startling critique of Western political economy that is even more resonant at present. Mishra is the author of "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World," and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and The Guardian. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/buddha-world/186
Thu, May 24, 2012
Jennifer Michael Hecht — A History of Doubt (January 8, 2009)
Poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht says that as a scholar she always noticed the "shadow history" of doubt out of the corner of her eye. She shows how non-belief, skepticism, and doubt have paralleled and at times shaped the world's great religious and secular belief systems. She suggests that only in modern time has doubt been narrowly equated with a complete rejection of faith, or a broader sense of mystery. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/history-doubt/51
Thu, May 24, 2012
Robert Coles — The Inner Lives of Children (Jan 1, 2009)
Psychiatrist Robert Coles has spent his career exploring the inner lives of children. He says children are witnesses to the fullness of our humanity; they are keenly attuned to the darkness as well as the light of life; and they can teach us about living honestly, searchingly and courageously if we let them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/inner-lives-children/204
Thu, May 24, 2012
Studs Terkel — Life, Faith, and Death (Nov 13, 2008)
We remember Studs Terkel, who recently died at the age of 96. The legendary interviewer chronicled decades of ordinary life and tumultuous change in U.S. culture. We visited him in his Chicago home in 2004 and drew out his wisdom and warmth on large existential themes of life and death. A lifelong agnostic, Studs Terkel shared his thoughts on religion as he'd observed it in his conversation partners, in culture, and in his own encounters with loss and mortality. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/studs-terkel-life-faith-and-death/180
Thu, May 24, 2012
Steven Waldman — Liberating the Founders (Oct 30, 2008)
Americans remain divided about how much religion they want in their political life. As we elect a new president, we return to an evocative, relevant conversation from earlier this year with journalist Steven Waldman. From his unusual study of the American founders, he understands why 21st-century struggles over religion in the public square spur passionate disagreement and entanglement with politics at its most impure. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/liberating-founders/122
Thu, May 24, 2012
Vashti McKenzie: African American, Woman, Leader (Oct 23, 2008)
The current U.S. presidential election has illustrated how gender, race, and religion can become lightning rods, and may be seen as potential stumbling blocks to leadership. Vashti McKenzie is a pioneering figure on all these fronts. When she became the first woman bishop of the oldest historic black church in America, she declared, "The stained glass ceiling has been pierced and broken." We offer her story, her wisdom, and her good humor as an edifying lens on the American past, present, and future. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/african-american-woman-leader/62
Thu, May 24, 2012
Rod Dreher — The Faith Life of the Party — Part II, The Right (Oct 9, 2008)
The second part of our examination of religious energies below the surface of the 2008 presidential campaign. Conservative columnist Rod Dreher is an outspoken critic of mainstream Republican economic and environmental ideas and the conduct of the Iraq war, but he voted for George W. Bush twice. We explore the little-known story of religiously-influenced impulses within the conservative movement that diverge from the Religious Right. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-life-party-part-ii-right/196
Thu, May 24, 2012
Amy Sullivan — The Faith Life of the Party — Part I, The Left (Oct 2, 2008)
The Religious Right has gotten a fair amount of coverage in recent years, while the political Left has rarely been represented with a religious sensibility. Our guest, a national correspondent for Time magazine is a political liberal and an Evangelical Christian who has been observing the Democratic Party's complex relationship with faith and the little-told story of its response to the rise of the Religious Right. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-life-party-part-i-left/195
Thu, May 24, 2012
Mel Robeck — Spiritual Tidal Wave: The Origins and Impact of Pentecostalism (Sep 18, 2008)
The birth of the Pentecostal movement began 100 years ago on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. We'll be taking our show on the road to cover this global gathering and revival that is reshaping Christianity, culture, and politics worldwide. http://www.onbeing.org/program/spiritual-tidal-wave-origins-and-impact-pentecostalism/176
Thu, May 24, 2012
Esther Sternberg — Stress and the Balance Within (Sep 4, 2008)
The American experience of stress has spawned a multi-billion dollar self-help industry. Wary of this, Esther Sternberg says that, until recently, modern science did not have the tools or the inclination to take emotional stress seriously. She shares fascinating new scientific insight into the molecular level of the mind-body connection. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/stress-and-balance-within/179
Thu, May 24, 2012
Rick and Kay Warren at Saddleback (Aug 21, 2008)
Evangelical leader Rick Warren is in the news for bringing John McCain and Barack Obama together at his Saddleback Church in California. This two-hour event, broadcast live on CNN, is just one sign of the cross-cultural authority Warren and his wife Kay have achieved in a handful of years. We revisit Krista's conversation with them at Saddleback last year -- exploring who they are and what motivates them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/rick-and-kay-warren-saddleback/167
Thu, May 24, 2012
Jonathan Greenblatt — The Business of Doing Good (July 31, 2008)
The news has been marked in recent years, at regular intervals, by the moral and practical downfall of prominent businesses. Jonathan Greenblatt is among a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to lead a fundamental shift in corporate culture as well as philanthropy -- a merger between making a profit and doing good. We explore his way of seeing the world and his economics of "ethical brand architecture" and "fiercely pragmatic idealism." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/business-doing-good/187
Thu, May 24, 2012
Adrian Ivakhiv — Pagans, Ancient and Modern (June 12, 2008)
An environmentalist who pursued the ecological impulse of Paganism, from its ancient roots to its modern revival in Europe and North America, discusses his observations about the spirit of Paganism and its influence on everyday Western culture -- and even on old-time religion. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pagans-ancient-and-modern/139
Thu, May 24, 2012
Susan Cheever and Kevin Griffin — The Spirituality of Addiction and Recovery (May 15, 2008)
Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson once said that the program he helped create is, "utter simplicity which encases a complete mystery." We explore the spiritual foundations of addiction and recovery with authors Kevin Griffin and Susan Cheever. Griffin reflects on the consonance of Buddhist teachings and the 12 Steps; Cheever tells her personal story and that of her father, the late fiction writer John Cheever. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirituality-addiction-and-recovery/229
Thu, May 24, 2012
The Beauty and Challenge of Being Catholic: Hearing the Faithful (May 3, 2008)
We depart from our usual format and listen to a spectrum of lay Catholic voices on the force of this vast and ancient tradition on their lives, the way they struggle with it, the sources of their love for it. Even to be a "lapsed Catholic," we hear, is a complex state of being. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/beauty-and-challenge-being-catholic-hearing-faithful/183
Thu, May 24, 2012
Greg Epstein — Exploring a New Humanism (March 27, 2008)
In a recent Pew poll, 16 percent of Americans identified themselves as "unaffiliated" - atheist, agnostic, or most prominently "nothing in particular." Greg Epstein, a Humanist chaplain at Harvard, described himself that way until he discovered the tradition of humanism. He is passionate about articulating an atheist identity that is not driven by a stance against religion but by positive ethical beliefs and actions. See more www.onbeing.org/program/exploring-new-humanism/97
Thu, May 24, 2012
Ingrid Mattson — A New Voice for Islam (March 6, 2008)
Ingrid Mattson, the first woman and first convert to lead the Islamic Society of North America, describes her experience of Islamic spirituality, which she discovered in her twenties after a Catholic upbringing. We probe her unusual perspective on a tumultuous age for Islam in the West and around the world. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/new-voice-islam/54
Thu, May 24, 2012
Krista Tippett — Remembering Forward (Jan 31, 2008)
Before a live audience at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, Krista reads from her book, "Speaking of Faith." She traces the intersection of human experience and religious ideas in her own life, just as she asks her guests to do each week. Krista reflects on her adventure of conversation across the world's traditions -- and on the whole story of religion in human life, beyond the headlines of violence. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/remembering-forward/160
Thu, May 24, 2012
Robert Millet — Inside Mormon Faith (Jan 24, 2008)
Americans have been hearing about Mormonism in the context of the presidential campaign. But we're learning about this faith of 13 million people indirectly, by way of rhetoric and defense. In this program, we avoid well-trodden, controversial ground and seek an understanding of some doctrinal and spiritual basics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robert Millet, a leading scholar of the church and a lifelong practitioner, describes a developing young religion with distinct mystical and practical interpretations of the nature of God, family, and eternity. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/inside-mormon-faith/112
Thu, May 24, 2012
Varadaraja V. Raman — The Heart's Reason: Hinduism and Science (Nov 22, 2007)
A rich global dialogue is taking place between religious thinkers and scientists of many disciplines. The global dialogue between science and religion often is obscured by headlines of a science/religion clash. V.V. Raman, a Hindu physicist, shares the ideals of his spirituality and insights from his study of physics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/hearts-reason-hinduism-and-science/202
Thu, May 24, 2012
Ingrid Jordt — Burma: Buddhism and Power (Nov 1, 2007)
Former Burmese Buddhist nun and anthropologist Ingrid Jordt takes us inside the spiritual culture of Burma, exploring the meaning of monks taking to the streets there in September, the way in which religion and military rule are intertwined, and how Buddhism remains a force in and beyond the current crisis. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/burma-buddhism-and-power/75
Thu, May 24, 2012
Paul Elie, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Robin Lovin — Rediscovering Reinhold Niebuhr (Oct 25, 2007)
Reinhold Niebuhr was a 20th-century theologian who had crossover appeal among religious and secular Americans. He's now being rediscovered as decision-makers on the right and the left ponder war, nation-building, and the relationship between politics and religion. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/moral-man-and-immoral-society-rediscovering-reinhold-niebuhr/132
Thu, May 24, 2012
Harvey Cox, Jr. — Beyond the Atheism-Religion Divide (Oct 18, 2007)
In 1965, young Harvard professor Harvey Cox became the best-selling voice of secularism in America with his book "The Secular City." He sees the old thinking in the "new atheism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Cox says that either/or debates between religion and atheism obscure the truly interesting interplay between faith and other forms of knowledge that is unfolding today. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/beyond-atheism-religion-divide/71/
Thu, May 24, 2012
Sister Joan Chittister — Obedience and Action (Oct 4, 2007)
In over 50 years as a Benedictine nun, Joan Chittister has emerged as a powerful and at times uncomfortable voice in Roman Catholicism and in global politics. If women were ordained in the Catholic Church in our lifetime, some say, she should be the first woman bishop. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obedience-and-action/137
Thu, May 24, 2012
Anchee Min — Surviving the Religion of Mao (Sep 13, 2007)
Anchee Min has recently published the second book in her fictional account of the last Chinese imperial court and its empress. In her personal story and in her writing, Anchee Min offers a window into spiritual instincts and experiences that mark a rapidly evolving China into the present. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/surviving-religion-mao/181
Thu, May 24, 2012
Eboo Patel — Religious Passion, Pluralism, and the Young (Aug 16, 2007)
We revisit Krista's 2005 conversation with Eboo Patel, who calls al-Qaeda the most effective youth organization in the world. But contrary to the wisdom of secular society, he's working to deepen rather than tame the religious energies of the young across many traditions. And he believes this may be our only chance for survival. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religious-passion-pluralism-and-young/159
Thu, May 24, 2012
Jo Anne Horstmann — L'Arche: A Community of Brokenness and Beauty (Aug 2, 2007)
We make a radio pilgrimage into the world of L'Arche, communities formed around people with mental disabilities and others who share life with them. At the heart of the L'Arche movement is a religious idea of difference as normal and imperfection as a source of strength. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/larche-community-brokenness-and-beauty/116
Thu, May 24, 2012
Manuel Vasquez — Latino Migration and the Changing Face of Religion in the Americas (July 26, 2007)
With Salvadoran-American scholar Manuel Vasquez, we explore how religious and spiritual worldviews anchor Latino cultures and are reshaping North American culture in fascinating ways. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/latino-migrations-and-changing-face-religion-americas/106
Fri, May 18, 2012
Elliot Dorff and Luke Timothy Johnson — Marriage, Family, and Divorce (July 5, 2007)
American ideals of courtship and marriage echo with Biblical imagery — "bone of my bones" "flesh of my flesh." But what does the Bible really say, and how has it been taught across the centuries in which the institution of marriage has changed dramatically? With a rabbi and a New Testament scholar, we explore nuances of biblical teachings about marriage, family, and divorce — the surprising ambiguities of the New Testament and the striking practicality of Jewish tradition across the ages. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/marriage-family-and-divorce/129
Fri, May 18, 2012
Mariane Pearl — A Spirit of Defiance (June 21, 2007)
In this close-up look at the human dynamics of the war on terror, our guest speaks about her husband, journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Pakistan shortly after 9/11. She talks about Buddhism, her ethic of spiritual defiance, and her hopes for the future. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirit-defiance/58
Fri, May 18, 2012
Major John Morris — The Soul of War (May 24, 2007)
With Iraq veteran and chaplain Major John Morris, we explore how war challenges the human spirit and the core tenets of a life of faith. The War on Terror, he says, presents its own spiritual challenges. He is working to support the reintegration of National Guard and Reserve personnel, who are being mobilized for active duty at record levels in Afghanistan and Iraq. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/soul-war/225
Fri, May 18, 2012
George F. R. Ellis — Science and Hope (May 10, 2007)
A conversation with South African Quaker and cosmologist George Ellis. He argues that ethics, like mathematics, is a part of the universe that we discover rather than invent. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/science-and-hope/172
Fri, May 18, 2012
The Private Faith of Jimmy Carter (April 26, 2007)
Jimmy Carter -- former president and Nobel Laureate, author and global humanitarian -- speaks of his born-again faith with a directness that is striking even in today's political culture. He reflects on being commander in chief while following, as he says, "the Prince of Peace"; on upholding the law while privately opposing abortion; and on his marriage of 60 years as a metaphor for the challenge of human relationship both personal and global. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/private-faith-jimmy-carter/219
Fri, May 18, 2012
Richard Cizik — The Evolution of American Evangelicalism (April 12, 2007)
Last month, conservative Christian leaders demanded that Richard Cizik be silenced or removed from his post. They charged that his concerns about climate change and torture have shifted attention away from moral issues such as gay marriage and abortion. But for Cizik, poverty, war, and the environment are moral issues too. We revisit Krista's 2006 conversation with Cizik that took many listeners by surprise. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-american-evangelicalism/192
Fri, May 18, 2012
Charles Villa-Vincencio and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela — Truth and Reconciliation (March 22, 2007)
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) held public sessions from 1996 to 1998, and concluded its work in 2004. In an attempt to rebuild its society without retribution, the Commission created a new model for grappling with a history of extreme violence. The basic premise of the Commission was that any individual, whatever he or she had done, was eligible for amnesty if they would fully disclose and confess their crimes. Victims were invited to tell their stories and witness confessions. Through the TRC, many families finally came to know when and how their loved ones died. By the end of the hearings, the Commission took statements from more than 20,000 victims of Apartheid and received applications for amnesty from 7,100 perpetrators. We explore the religious implications of truth and reconciliation with two people — one black, one white — who did the work of the Commission in charge of it. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/truth-and-reconciliation/236/
Fri, May 18, 2012
S. James Gates and Thomas Levenson — Einstein's Ethics (March 15, 2007)
In the final episode of this two-part series, we delve into Einstein's Jewish identity, his passionate engagement around issues of war and race, and modern extensions of his ethical and scientific perspectives with theoretical physicist S. James Gates, Jr. and biographer Thomas Levenson See more at www.onbeing.org/program/einsteins-ethics/89
Fri, May 18, 2012
Bruce Feiler — Children of Abraham (Feb 8, 2007)
Abraham is the common patriarch of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. His story spans dramatic territory of the modern world — both physical and spiritual — beginning in southern Iraq and ending in the West Bank city of Hebron. Journalist Bruce Feiler went in search of Abraham to understand the crises and possibilities of the 21st-century world. The story of Abraham, Feiler says, illuminates God and politics, sacred geography, and modern spirituality. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/children-abraham/77
Fri, May 18, 2012
Isabel Mukonyora — Sacred Wilderness, An African Story (Feb 22, 2007)
Isabel Mukonyora has followed and studied a religious movement of her Shona people, the Masowe Apostles, that embraces Christian tradition while addressing the drama of African life and history. The founder of this movement, Johane Masowe, emphasized an ancient Jewish and Christian pull to the wilderness. Through her stories we explore modern African spirituality, diaspora, and finding meaning, as Mukonyora says, "in the margins." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/sacred-wilderness-african-story/169
Fri, May 18, 2012
Leila Ahmed — Muslim Women and Other Misunderstandings (Dec 7, 2006)
Is our Western concern about women in Islam really a concern for the well-being of women? Is the veil a symptom of their problems, or ours? Our guest Leila Ahmed provides essential background and challenges Western thinking on these and other questions. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/muslim-women-and-other-misunderstandings/133
Fri, May 18, 2012
Martin Marty — America's Changing Religious Landscape (Nov 2, 2006)
A great public theologian and historian, Martin Marty offers personal and historical perspective on religion in modern life — including the nature of fundamentalism, and the decline of America's mainline Protestant majority as Evangelical Christianity gains in influence. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/americas-changing-religious-landscape-conversation-martin-marty/65
Fri, May 18, 2012
Peter Berger and Rosabeth Moss Kanter — Globalization and the Rise of Religion (Oct 12, 2006)
Experts once predicted that as the world grew more modern, religion would decline. Precisely the opposite has proven true; religious movements are surging and driving "alternative globalizations" across the world. Two leading thinkers offer a penetrating view of how and why religion of all kinds is shaping the global economy and political order. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/globalization-and-rise-religion/105#sthash.nW578dAw.dpuf
Fri, May 18, 2012
John Danforth — Conservative Politics and Moderate Religion (Sep 14, 2006)
Politics driven by a religious agenda, Danforth says, is true neither to his understanding of Christian faith nor to the traditional values of the Republican party. This veteran politician speaks about the values that have helped him navigate the line between private faith and public life and his current concerns about religion in his own party and in the world. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/conservative-politics-and-moderate-religion/80
Fri, May 18, 2012
Seyyed Hossein Nasr — Hearing Muslim Voices Since 9/11 (Sep 7, 2006)
Dramatic headlines convey a predominantly violent picture of global Islam. But, during the past five years, Muslim guests on SOF have conveyed a thoughtful, questing, diverse, and compelling faith. Step back with us and hear these voices from the traditional and evolving center of Islam. And, Krista speaks with Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an esteemed Muslim scholar who brings a broad religious and historical perspective to hard questions about Islam and the West that have lingered uncomfortably in American life since 9/11. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/hearing-muslim-voices-911/107
Fri, May 18, 2012
David Hilfiker — Seeing Poverty After Katrina (Aug 24, 2006)
Hurricane Katrina brought urban poverty in America into all of our living rooms. In this program, David Hilfiker tells the story of how poverty and racial isolation came to be in cities across America. He lives creatively and realistically with questions many of us began to ask in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/seeing-poverty-after-katrina/173
Fri, May 18, 2012
Richard Mouw + Virginia Ramey Mollenkott — Gay Marriage: Broken or Blessed? (Aug 3, 2006)
Our culture's acrimonious debate on the morality of gay marriage has been framed in religious — largely conservative Christian — terms. We go behind the rhetoric to explore the human confusion, hopes, and fears this subject arouses. We'll name hard questions that these religious people on both sides of the issue are asking themselves, and that they would like to ask of others. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/gay-marriage-broken-or-blessed-two-evangelical-views/103
Fri, May 18, 2012
Elie Wiesel — The Tragedy of the Believer (July 13, 2006)
A survivor of the Holocaust, in which he lost most of his family, Wiesel is a seminal chronicler of that event and its meaning. Wiesel shares some of his thoughts on modern-day Israel and Germany, his understanding of God, and his practice of prayer after the Holocaust. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/tragedy-believer/232
Thu, May 17, 2012
Luke Timothy Johnson and Bernadette Brooten — Deciphering the Da Vinci Code (June 1, 2006)
The wildly popular novel turned movie reimagines the New Testament, in part, as a cover-up. What really happened in the fluid early years of Christianity? What is the truth about Mary Magdalene? We separate fact from fiction in the story's plot with two New Testament scholars who say that the story is simpler and much more interesting than conspiracy theories suggest. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/deciphering-da-vinci-code/83
Thu, May 17, 2012
Dan and Sue Hanson — Room for J: One Family's Struggle with Schizophrenia (May 4, 2006)
Joel Hanson has schizophrenia and believes he is God. His parents reflect on living with their son and how they have learned to see mental illness, normalcy, and religion differently. Is there room in our culture to consider a schizophrenic personality as another form of human difference and diversity? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/room-j-one-familys-struggle-schizophrenia/168
Thu, May 17, 2012
Mohammed Abu-Nimer + Sami Adwan — Reflections on the Israeli-Palestinian Present, II (Mar 16, 2006)
In the second of a two-part series, continue listening to experiences and perceptions that divide Israelis and Palestinians even as they share a land they both consider holy. Two Muslim Palestinians, Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Sami Adwan, speak about the intersection of the spiritual and the political in their lives.' See more at www.onbeing.org/program/two-narratives-reflections-israeli-palestinian-present-part-1/238
Thu, May 17, 2012
Yossi Klein Halevi — Reflections on the Israeli-Palestinian Present, Part 1 (Mar 9, 2006)
In the first of a two-part series, we'll seek to understand the difficulty of peace in a land that its inhabitants, on both sides of conflict, consider holy. We listen this hour to journalist Yossi Klein Halevi's perceptions and perspectives as an Israeli Jew. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/two-narratives-reflections-israeli-palestinian-present-part-1/238
Thu, May 17, 2012
Prabhu Guptara — The Gods of Business (Feb 23, 2006)
In an age of Enron and WorldCom, how can we imagine a place for business ethics, much less religious virtue, in the global economy? We speak with a Hindu international business analyst who offers learned, fascinating observations about how the world's myriad religions have shaped global business norms and practices. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/gods-business/199#sthash.4Qf34SrR.dpuf
Thu, May 17, 2012
Vincent Cornell — The Face of the Prophet: Cartoons and Chasm (Feb 16, 2006)
Our guest, an American Muslim and religious scholar, helps untangle the knot of violent and bewildered reactions to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/face-prophet-cartoons-and-chasm/194
Thu, May 17, 2012
Martin Doblmeier — Ethics and the Will of God: The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Feb 2, 2006)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life spanned the rise and fall of Hitler's Germany, offers us a model of personal morality and conscience in the most troubled and immoral of times. His resistance of Nazi ideology, while much of the German church succumbed, is a testament to his moral vision and faith. Krista speaks with producer Martin Doblmeier, whose 2003 documentary chronicled Bonhoeffer's life and thought, about the legacy of this unusual theologian. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ethics-and-will-god-legacy-dietrich-bonhoeffer/91#sthash.hBqiHiAB.dpuf
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