The wise and beloved Vatican astronomer Father George Coyne died last week. Like most of the Vatican astronomers across history, he was a Jesuit. More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it, and ten Jesuits in history have had asteroids named after them. Father Coyne was one of the few with this distinction, alongside his friend and fellow Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno. In a conversation filled with laughter, we experience a spacious way to approach li...
Feb 20, 2020•52 min•Ep. 809
The wise and beloved Vatican astronomer Father George Coyne died last week. Like most of the Vatican astronomers across history, he was a Jesuit. More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it, and ten Jesuits in history have had asteroids named after them. Father Coyne was one of the few with this distinction, alongside his friend and fellow Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno. In a conversation filled with laughter, we experience a spacious way to approach li...
Feb 20, 2020•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 808
The House on Mango Street by Mexican American writer Sandra Cisneros has been taught in high schools across the U.S. for decades. A poetic writer of many genres, she’s received a MacArthur “genius grant,” a National Medal of Arts, and many other accolades. Cisneros grew up in an immigrant household where it was assumed she would marry as her primary destiny. In this warm and lively conversation with a room full of Latinx teens, she gives voice to the choice to be single — and, single or not, to ...
Feb 13, 2020•52 min•Ep. 807
The House on Mango Street by Mexican American writer Sandra Cisneros has been taught in high schools across the U.S. for decades. A poetic writer of many genres, she’s received a MacArthur “genius grant,” a National Medal of Arts, and many other accolades. Cisneros grew up in an immigrant household where it was assumed she would marry as her primary destiny. In this warm and lively conversation with a room full of Latinx teens, she gives voice to the choice to be single — and, single or not, to ...
Feb 13, 2020•2 hr 39 min•Ep. 806
Journalist Ezra Klein has been widely interviewed about his new book, Why We're Polarized . In this conversation, he's frank and reflective about what's at stake in human terms in this political moment. And he describes how we all — Democrat and Republican, journalist and citizen alike — walked into this as a way to trace our steps out of it. Ezra Klein is the co-founder and editor-at-large of Vox Media and host of two podcasts: The Weeds and The Ezra Klein Show . His book is Why We’re Polarized...
Feb 06, 2020•52 min•Ep. 805
Journalist Ezra Klein has been widely interviewed about his new book, Why We're Polarized . In this conversation, he's frank and reflective about what's at stake in human terms in this political moment. And he describes how we all — Democrat and Republican, journalist and citizen alike — walked into this as a way to trace our steps out of it. Ezra Klein is the co-founder and editor-at-large of Vox Media and host of two podcasts: The Weeds and The Ezra Klein Show . His book is Why We’re Polarized...
Feb 06, 2020•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 804
We’re excited to share the first episode of our new podcast, Poetry Unbound . It’s your new ritual: Immerse yourself in a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama . Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing. Anchor your week by listening to the everyday poetry of your life, with new episodes on Monday and Friday during the season. This episode features Brad Aaron Modlin’s poem, “What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade.” For more, subscribe to Poetry Unbound on Spotify , ...
Jan 30, 2020•8 min
Alison Gopnik understands babies and children as the R&D division of humanity. From her cognitive science lab at the University of California, -Berkeley, she investigates the “evolutionary paradox” of the long human childhood. When she first trained in philosophy and developmental psychology, the minds of children were treated as blank slates. But her research is helping us see how even the most mundane facts of a toddler or a teenager — from fantasy play to rebelliousness — tell us what it mean...
Jan 23, 2020•52 min•Ep. 801
Alison Gopnik understands babies and children as the R&D division of humanity. From her cognitive science lab at the University of California, -Berkeley, she investigates the “evolutionary paradox” of the long human childhood. When she first trained in philosophy and developmental psychology, the minds of children were treated as blank slates. But her research is helping us see how even the most mundane facts of a toddler or a teenager — from fantasy play to rebelliousness — tell us what it mean...
Jan 23, 2020•2 hr 45 min•Ep. 800
Civil rights legend Ruby Sales learned to ask “Where does it hurt?” because it’s a question that drives to the heart of the matter — and a question we scarcely know how to ask in public life now. Sales says we must be as clear about what we love as about what we hate if we want to make change. And even as she unsettles some of what we think we know about the force of religion in civil rights history, she names a “spiritual crisis of white America” as a calling of today. Ruby Sales is the founder...
Jan 16, 2020•52 min•Ep. 799
Civil rights legend Ruby Sales learned to ask “Where does it hurt?” because it’s a question that drives to the heart of the matter — and a question we scarcely know how to ask in public life now. Sales says we must be as clear about what we love as about what we hate if we want to make change. And even as she unsettles some of what we think we know about the force of religion in civil rights history, she names a “spiritual crisis of white America” as a calling of today. Ruby Sales is the founder...
Jan 16, 2020•2 hr 15 min•Ep. 798
Joe Henry faced his mortality in 2018 when he was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer and told he might only have months to live. Now in remission, the singer-songwriter and producer has created a gorgeous new album, The Gospel According to Water . Henry’s wisdom on living — and the loss that strangely defines it — ran all the way through this conversation, recorded before his cancer, in 2015. Beloved by fellow musicians as much as by his fans, he’s produced over a dozen albums of his own and...
Jan 09, 2020•52 min•Ep. 797
Joe Henry faced his mortality in 2018 when he was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer and told he might only have months to live. Now in remission, the singer-songwriter and producer has created a gorgeous new album, The Gospel According to Water . Henry’s wisdom on living — and the loss that strangely defines it — ran all the way through this conversation, recorded before his cancer, in 2015. Beloved by fellow musicians as much as by his fans, he’s produced over a dozen albums of his own and...
Jan 09, 2020•2 hr 40 min•Ep. 796
Brené Brown says our belonging to each other can’t be lost, but it can be forgotten. Her research has reminded the world in recent years of the uncomfortable, life-giving link between vulnerability and courage. Now she’s turning her attention to how we walked into the crisis of our life together and how we can move beyond it: with strong backs, soft fronts, and wild hearts. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown End...
Jan 02, 2020•52 min•Ep. 795
Brené Brown says our belonging to each other can’t be lost, but it can be forgotten. Her research has reminded the world in recent years of the uncomfortable, life-giving link between vulnerability and courage. Now she’s turning her attention to how we walked into the crisis of our life together and how we can move beyond it: with strong backs, soft fronts, and wild hearts. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown End...
Jan 02, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 794
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk is an innovator in treating the effects of overwhelming experiences. We call this “trauma” when we encounter it in life and news, and we tend to leap to address it by talking. But Bessel van der Kolk knows how some experiences imprint themselves beyond where language can reach. He explores state-of-the-art therapeutic treatments — including body work like yoga and eye movement therapy — and shares what he and others are learning on this edge of humanity about the...
Dec 26, 2019•52 min•Ep. 793
Fr. Greg Boyle makes amazingly winsome connections between things like service and delight, compassion and awe. He landed as an idealistic young Jesuit in a gang-heavy neighborhood of Los Angeles three decades ago. Now he heads Homeboy Industries , which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses from screen printing to a farmers’ market to a bakery. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. Greg Boyle is founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries ...
Dec 19, 2019•53 min•Ep. 791
Fr. Greg Boyle makes amazingly winsome connections between things like service and delight, compassion and awe. He landed as an idealistic young Jesuit in a gang-heavy neighborhood of Los Angeles three decades ago. Now he heads Homeboy Industries , which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses from screen printing to a farmers’ market to a bakery. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. Greg Boyle is founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries ...
Dec 19, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 790
"Close" by David Whyte read by Krista Tippett David Whyte is an associate fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. His books include The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America , Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words and The Bell and The Blackbird . His latest collection is David Whyte: Essentials . Find more at onbeing.org...
Dec 12, 2019•3 min•Ep. 788
Richard Blanco reads parts IV and V from his poem “América”. Excerpted from the On Being episode “ Richard Blanco – How to Love a Country ”.
Nov 27, 2019•2 min
Novelist Marilynne Robinson and physicist Marcelo Gleiser are both passionate about the majesty of science, and they share a caution about what they call our modern “piety” toward science. They connect thrilling dots among the current discoveries about the cosmos and the new territory of understanding our own minds. We brought them together for a joyous, heady discussion of the mystery we are. Marcelo Gleiser is Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy at...
Nov 21, 2019•52 min•Ep. 782
Novelist Marilynne Robinson and physicist Marcelo Gleiser are both passionate about the majesty of science, and they share a caution about what they call our modern “piety” toward science. They connect thrilling dots among the current discoveries about the cosmos and the new territory of understanding our own minds. We brought them together for a joyous, heady discussion of the mystery we are. Marcelo Gleiser is Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy at...
Nov 21, 2019•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 781
For as far back as Joy Ladin can remember, her body didn’t match her soul. In her mid-40s, Ladin transitioned from male to female identity and later became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution. She admits the pain this caused for people and institutions she loved. And she knows what it is to move through the world with the assumed authority of a man and the assumed vulnerability of a woman. We take in what she’s learned about gender and the very syntax of bein...
Nov 07, 2019•52 min•Ep. 778
For as far back as Joy Ladin can remember, her body didn’t match her soul. In her mid-40s, Ladin transitioned from male to female identity and later became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution. She admits the pain this caused for people and institutions she loved. And she knows what it is to move through the world with the assumed authority of a man and the assumed vulnerability of a woman. We take in what she’s learned about gender and the very syntax of bein...
Nov 07, 2019•2 hr 38 min•Ep. 777
“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 actor and 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. John Paul Lederach is a senior fellow at Humanity United and...
Oct 24, 2019•52 min•Ep. 774
“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 actor and 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. John Paul Lederach is a senior fellow at Humanity United and...
Oct 24, 2019•2 hr 36 min•Ep. 773
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, ...
Oct 17, 2019•52 min•Ep. 772
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, ...
Oct 17, 2019•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 771
Writer David Treuer’s work tells a story that is richer and more multi-dimensional than the American history most of us learned in school. Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. At the time of our conversation with him in 2008, he was part of an ongoing project to document the grammar and usage of the Ojibwe language. He says the recovery of tribal languages and names is part of a fuller recovery of our national story — and the human story. And it holds unexpected ob...
Oct 10, 2019•51 min•Ep. 770
Writer David Treuer’s work tells a story that is richer and more multi-dimensional than the American history most of us learned in school. Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. At the time of our conversation with him in 2008, he was part of an ongoing project to document the grammar and usage of the Ojibwe language. He says the recovery of tribal languages and names is part of a fuller recovery of our national story — and the human story. And it holds unexpected ob...
Oct 10, 2019•2 hr 38 min•Ep. 769
