Krista Tippett on Being Human

thanks so much to our Patreon members. If you'd like to experience being a Patreon member and all the benefits that come with it, go to one you feed dot net slash join in case you're just recently joining us, or however long you've been a listener of the show. You may not realize that we have over seven years of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that may be new to you, but if not,

it definitely is worth another lesson. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Krista Tippett The Reality of Life is that you get to a lot of the places you wanted to be or you were meant to be, but you would never have known it through things that went wrong. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true, and yet for many of us, our

thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spa. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Welcome

to the show. Our guest this week is Krista Tippett, host of On Being, the Peabody Award winning public radio show and podcast. On Being opens up the animating questions at the center of human life. What does it mean to be human? And how do we want to live? Christa is also the author of Speaking of faith, Why religion matters, and Einstein's God, conversations about science and the human spirit. Here's the interview. Hi Krista, welcome to the show. I'm glad to be with you. Yeah, thanks so much.

I'm I'm really excited to have you on your Your show on being is one of my favorites and certainly one of the things that I looked to as we started this show, something that I was hoping to aspire towards. So thanks for the great example. Thank you. At So, our podcast is based on the parable of the two Wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of

us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks, and he says, Grandfather, well, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work

that you do. Well. Well, first of all, I I love that parable and I'm I'm trying to remember when I first heard it. I'm I think a few people have shared it with me. And actually, when I saw your podcast starting, I thought, Wow, what a great title,

because it's a wonderful image. And I guess if I think about it in terms of the work I do, UM in public radio, and UM as a journalist and with a background in journalism, UM, I'm aware that the way we in the West defined news in the late twentieth century, UM, which was essentially, you know, the extraordinary thing that happened today, and then generally turned out to

be the extraordinary, extraordinarily terrible thing that happened today. UM, because we we've lived in this culture where we are bombarded by ever you know, this ever increasing um, you know, mass of information and news and bad news and the same bad news repeated over and over a in UM, we don't we don't internalize it as extraordinary. We start to internalize as what goes wrong as the norm. And you know, and that the effect of the way we do news and information is actually to demoralize us and

to paralyze us. And UM, you know, you want you want to feel compassion, you want to care and and and people do feel such anguish uh and and so and such a desire to be involved in their communities and in in in making um, you know, a more humane world. But but what comes at us through journalism, often in genders, exactly the wrong kind of effect. You just shut down and you say, you know, I'm going to take care of my family. I'm going to do the best I can. I cannot help and that's wrong, uh,

and it's bad for us. And so one of the ways I think about my work and my show is that I try to look for I want to say, not just good stories, but a fuller story, you know, the whole story of what it means to be human in the twenty one century. UM has so much that is us drilling and yes, frightening, UM, but but so many ways that we can and must meet the challenges and the questions of our age. And so I try to draw out voices who bring that to the floor.

And you know, not making things simpler, um, but making things listenable and finding human ways in to wrap our minds around dis incredible world we live in. So I guess I'm feeding the good wolf. And that's yeah, yeah, One of the things that you're your show is particularly known for is trying to or at least my perspective, is trying to add a civilized voice to the discussions between science and religion, and you refer to those um,

those two things. Is not necessarily giving contradictory answers two questions, but asking different questions. Can you elaborate maybe a little bit more on that. Yes, And I mean, this is another one of the this is a form that we're so used to, but that's really gotten us into trouble is that we always set up, we set up everything to be a debate, and we set up competing answers um to du get out and we draw out the most strident voices you know, on either side of those

competing answers. UM. But in fact, when you apply that method and that kind of way of thinking too the role of science in human society and the role of religion in human society, it's a complete distortion of the way these disciplines have worked across time and the way they actually coexist and and and our in relationship in our lives in so many ways that we think about

and that we never think about. Um and and Yes, one of the points that is so important to me is, UM, it's actually not true most of the time that the way it works is not that you would present one question and that science would give one answer and religion would give another. I mean, I suppose the only question like that, you know, if you wanted to be simplistic about it, would be if you ask the question is

there a God? But even so many of the scientists I know would say that it would be unempirical to state categorically that there is no God. And really that's not that's not such an interesting question. UM. There's so many amazing things that both science and religion are looking at. And yes, when that happens, what they're doing is is looking at something like, UM, you know what it means

to be human? UM, where we come from, where we're going, these great existential questions, these great existential kind of UH challenges, and and science and religion probe these things completely different ways. And UM, so much of the time I actually find their different. They're different questioning, their different lines of questioning, and their different answers. To be complementary, UM at least to be to be UH in relationship with each other

or in conversation with each other. And I think again that all of us experience that in our lives, and it seems important to me that we realign the way we talk about this in public with with our with our real intuition and experience. Yeah, our our public discourse is not good around that topic really, or most topics at this point. So yeah, that's right. Yeah, you've mentioned listening as a spiritual technology, So tell us more about what you mean by that and the role that listening

has played in your life and your own spiritual growth. Um. You know, when I say that listening is spiritual technology, I mean that it is, uh one of these very essential ways. It's kind of an ordinary, everyday virtue, um, but it's it's an essential way that we can reach across the mystery, um of the other. And there aren't many things that we do in our lives that are

more important than that. And and it can be with our own children or parents, or it can be with that stranger or that very different other in our community or in our world and in the world we live in now you know, we are in very well, very real ways interdependent with strangers. You know, it's strangers across the city and strangers across the globe. UM. And so listening is this absolutely essential tool um, that we need to cultivate um to live into that gracefully, to live

into the reality of our time. I do believe that listening is a spiritual virtue. I think it's something that um, we have to kind of relearn. Uh. We we live in a very noisy, busy world and that you know, much of that is not bad. It it is our reality. Much of that is exciting and full of possibility. UM. But it does it does force us if we want to become better listeners, to create spaces um where real

listening can happen. And you know, listening is not um just about being quiet while the other person takes their turn speaking, which is kind of what we've turned into. UM. Listening is about presents. It's a really really being present. UM. It's about all kinds of wonderful things like being open to be surprised, being open to be amazed. UM. It's

also about some frightening things, like like being vulnerable. I mean, if you really go into an encounter or a conversation with a real intention to listen, UM, you you have to open yourself and you have. You don't have to set your personality aside or your convictions aside. You know those are part of you as the person who's present taking that in, but you do you do have to be open to soften and in a sense you have

to open to be changed. Um, at least you know, again not in necessarily giving up who you are, but making room in who you are and in your sense of the world for the integrity of these other words and this other person. So listening in that sense, Um, it's a very basic tool, but it's transformative. It's very challenging. I mean, I don't think many of us are very

are very it at. We had a guest on Rosalind Wiseman who has done a lot of work with teenagers, young boys, young girls, and she describes, I'm not gonna get it exactly right, but you you alluded to it. They're listening. Is is going into a conversation with the openness to be changed. Yeah, at least at least go you know, at least having your mind open to that idea.

Whereas a lot of conversation I think very much is I'm I'm gonna listen to you that I'm going to make my point and then yeah, yeah, and really listening. You're not listening, you're thinking all the time about what you're going to say next. Right, and and here's the thing that's what we've been trained to do, right we um, of course, of course we're not. Many of us aren't good listeners because it's it's not a skill that has

been cultivated, right. I mean, neuroscience is on our side here because it says that that we are actually all can be, can keep learning and changing across the span of our lifetimes. But the the you know, the the downside of that is it says you have to practice. You know, the ways you want to change, you have to practice. It's like throwing a ball. You get better at it by practicing it. And if we want to become better listeners as individuals and as a culture, we

have to practice it. How do you listen while you're doing an interview? Because I find that to be one of the challenging things is I'm trying to listen and I'm also thinking about where the conversation is going. And you're very good at what you do. What what's how

do you approach that? Well? I mean, one thing I will say, just following on what I you know, what I just said is that I've been doing this for ten years and I definitely have gotten better at that, and that that really is a part of the skill of being a professional listening, a professional listener, a host, and a conversation leader. That you are juggling a lot of things right. You're you're not just listening, You're also moving the conversation forward, you know, And I'm thinking about

the narrative arc of the conversation. Um. I so a couple of things. I mean, UM, we we leave about ninety minutes for most of my first conversations, so UM, and that that's really important. Um. Now, only about forty five minutes of that makes it into the radio show. But what that means is that, UM, we can I can relax into a space with someone where we don't have to immediately you know. It takes a little time

to warm up, right, and we can do that. So it's often true that the first ten or fifteen minutes of the conversation is not on the air. It's essential time to get to that that more intimate place we got to. Um, A real conversation is is messy, and if it has a little bit of adventure in it. You know, you may take some risks and the other thing about having and it's just that somebody can go off on a side road and and I can think to myself as they're doing it, boy, this is probably

a side road. And we may not use it, but it's prompt you know, it's interesting and and and and sometimes, um, those side roads lead to something completely wonderful and surprising that I wouldn't have known, you know, to make happen. So so there is just this practical thing about creating the right container. Um. And then uh, you know the other thing I do, and I do think this is part of the container too, is I do a huge

amount of preparation. You know, I read a lot. If people have written I I try to take in other interviews they may have done, other ways that I can have a sense of who they are and really not just what they know, but how they think. Um. I think that when I come into a conversation with that sense of them, that even if you're talking to somebody across the phone line, somehow that communicates itself. And so it's a it's it's to me that's like an act

of hospitality, creating a hospitality hospitable space, you know. And I think that a hospitable um uh presence just communicates itself kind of palpably. So and you know the difference. We all know the difference between sitting down with someone and you feel like you're going to have to explain yourself and you get into a certain mode that is somewhat uptight, or you sit down across from someone and you sense they get me, you know, and and then you can relax, and then that's going to be a

different kind of conversation. And then thirdly, I just say, no, I do take all these notes into an interview, um. But part of the point of preparing is to be so prepared that when the real conversation starts, you can put the notes to one side, and then they they become more of a kind of roadmap and outline. But really, I hope and because I you know, I can follow

better what's happening because of all that preparation, UM. But I hope to be so prepared that that I can set the notes to one side once the conversation really starts and for much of the time just be listening. So it's a it's a combination of all those things. Yeah, interviewing you is sort of like cooking for Julia Child. So I'm doing my best here. A book that you talk about a lot in one of your favorite books, is also one of my very favorites, which is Letters

to a Young Poet. Yeah, do you want to share maybe a thing or two from that book that most resonates with you and that might be applicable to what we're what we're talking about. Well, my favorite favorite line, my favorite thought from Letters to a Young Poet is lkas Relicus idea of living the questions, of loving questions,

of holding questions. And this has really formed me, especially as I think about not only as I think about what I do, but as I think about being a healing force in this culture that, as you and I talked about a minute ago, is so focused on answers and on competing answers, and in fact, we've kind of been trained, and we've been trained to feel like to start getting nervous, you know, if we don't have an answer to something pretty quickly, and if we have, if

we have questions, and we turned it into a debate, and the debate ends and someone wins, or if we have some very complex, you know, challenge or development in our society, we try as quickly as possible to resolve it with a law. Um you know, we take a vote. And but so many of the things that we're dealing with, like we are just living in this amazing moment in time when we are re reposing the big questions you know,

what does it mean to be human? And the contours of our answer in the twenty century and the ways we the ways we what we how we move through the world, even the practicalities of that are just radically different from previous generations. Um. So I find this idea of Rilca. You know, Rilka said, love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language, and don't search for the answers which could not be given to you, because you would

not be able to live them yet. And so he said, now the work now is to live the questions. And I just I feel, on a very practical human level, if we would just step back from all the things we think we have to fight about, you know, sometimes just all of us on every side, and step back and just taking the fact that these questions were raising are huge, even something like especially something like redefining the meaning of marriage, just like stepping back and saying, wow,

this is a big deal. You know, but we could all on every side say what a big deal that in our generation we're redefining marriage and and in that, in doing that, redefining family and redefining community and all of you know, those things are huge manifestations of how we how we pose and answer the question what does

it mean to be human? So so to step back and dwell with this, I think is to also let ourselves dwell with the questions, to understand that they have power in and of themselves, and that um on some of these things that we're taking up. Um that technology is forcing us. You know, technology is kind of blowing up a lot of things the way they've always been. Whatever that means for the last fifty years. Um uh. And and I think a lot of this the big

structural changes. You know, we can take votes, we can we can we can have the winners and losers of debates, we can pass laws, but we are not going to have real deep consensus on a lot of these open questions. You know, maybe in our generation, maybe not in all

of our lifetimes. I do think, however, that we could agree that we'd like to live into the questions together and then it becomes, you know, then we start to honor the questions, and then we start to focus more on how we treat each other along the way while we held questions. That's kind of you know, in my little space, I think that's kind that's the that's a

virtue I'm trying to cultivate. Yeah, that's one of my very favorite favorite parts of that that book also, and I like it taking it to a more personal level with being comfortable with not knowing things in life, and there seems to be such a people have. I think we have such an innate desire to know are we doing the right thing? Or what's going to happen with this?

And and I you know, I remember reading that when I was young, and it just was so profound to realize, Oh, I don't have to I don't have to know that. And it it points to something else that you refer to a lot in your in your interviews and in your writing, which is two concepts that I think are at the heart of um a lot of spirituality. What we talked about and those are paradox and ambiguity. So, yeah, do you want to share maybe a little bit your your view on on Let's maybe start with paradox and

the role that plays in spiritual development. Well, I'll just tell you that in the early days of the radio show, at one point I think my producers like forbade me to use the word ambiguity. It's using it all the time. But it's a very catercultural thing. And the truth is, uh so, much of what is interesting and meaningful in life has a lot of paradox and ambiguity to it, right, I mean, it's a mything. Like it's not that we never have certainty or that we don't have moments of certainty,

but they don't last, you know, and that's fine. That's the way life is. Uh So, you know that in itself is part of the amadox of human existence, that we that we really are driven to to want to know for sure and to want to have ground to stand on, and that that calms us um. But but the the only real certainty is that everything will change, and so that's the great you know, that's a piece

of spiritual evolution. Taking that in that I actually think I think, you know, the work you're doing and the work I'm doing, and the work that all the people who were interviewing and the people who are you know, so many, so many people and all over the place and all kinds of things are kind of moving towards that kind of reality base. UM. I don't know I was talking, you know, I could you can talk about

paradox and ambiguity and in almost any context. To be more concrete about it, yesterday I was I was being interviewed actually by a or an evangelical seminary. And what wasn't they were asking me about. It was an it was an email interview, you know. It was questions and answers and I'm trying to think what the question was.

But anyway, what I talked about, and this is one of my favorite things to talk about, I was like, it was like the question was, how can you know, how can our tradition UM be more constructive in a pluralistic world? You know, And I think that for religious people in particular, UM, that can feel just like a contradiction, right or like a tension. Um you either are secure in your faith or maybe you have to give that up to in order to engage with the religious other.

And I just think that's a completely false choice. I I because the paradox of inter religious and really meaningful inter religious encounter. And I think this paradox is there

for all kinds of really meaningful encounter with difference. When you really connect and make a connection in a relationship with someone across some divide or some kind of difference, the paradox is that we always we understand ourselves better, We may even sink more deeply and interestingly into our identity at the very same time that we come to some kind of new openness and appreciation to this different other.

You know, if you don't have to give something up, so when when Um, But it's it's paradox, it's not intuitive and um. And it's also this kind of thing that unless you've done it, you can't believe it. It's hard to just present it as an argument. Um. But so many of the great things are like that, and spirit will we I think that this is that, you know. The way I think about this is how uh you know? Mystery? A reverence for mystery is such a huge elemental part

of every religious and spiritual tradition. Um. And so even at the core of our traditions. They ask us to understand that in any given moment, in big ways and small, there will be things we understand, we get and understand and are certain about, and things we will not understand in this lifetime. So there's this creative tension that we're called to UM, and I think it's an enlivening tension, and I actually think it's very relaxing that mystery can be.

You know, honoring mystery UM can be remarkably calming if you if you can give yourself over to that creative tension. It's more calming than the than the work of constantly thinking, oh, there must be something wrong if I can't figure this out, and how can I find this down exactly. I was gonna say, it's that letting go of having to know UM.

One of our one of our early guests was Oliver Berkman, and he wrote a really a great book called The Antidote Happiness for People who Hate Positive Thinking, and it's it's a really enjoyable book. I think you'd really like it. But one of the things he talks about is that if you could know everything that was going to happen to you in the rest of your life, even if it was all good. That would kind of take all

the all the fun out of it. It would you wouldn't want to know that, You wouldn't want to know everything that was going to happen, even though we often feel like I wish I knew everything. If that happened, you would lose a big part of being alive, which is exactly that mystery of sort of finding out what happens and and and just you know, back to the

back to the roka, enjoying the questions, the question. And the other reason that wouldn't work, uh, is that is that the real quality of life is that you get to a lot of the places you wanted to be or you or you you were meant to be, but you would never have known it through things that went wrong, right through things failing that you that you thought were right for you. And there's something so magical and beautiful about there's something also completely cruciating about it in the

moment usually um but it's not a straight line. One of the things we say at the one You feed a lot is that there's no shortcut to lasting happiness, right. We've got to do the work to improve our lives, but this can be really challenging to do without some support. Our lives are busy, there's a lot of things clawing at our attention, and we might have ways of working with our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are not very

good for our well being. So if you'd like help working on any or all of those things, I've got a couple of spots that have just opened up in my one on one coaching practice. You can book a free thirty minute call to talk with me, no pressure, and we get to know each other at one you

feed dot net slash coach. You've talked in the past about your your battles with depression, and actually one of the things that you said about depression was that it taught you to look for things that you wouldn't have looked for, wouldn't even thought to look for otherwise you actually had it. You also referred to depression and you're putting sort of a positive spin on parts of it, calling it a black Pandora's box, which I thought was was was a wonderful way. Can you maybe share how

that how that journey has gone on for you? You you you wrote about it early on. You know shortly after you'd come out of I'm curious years later how that how that battle continues to go well. Um, so I guess, I guess something that's kind of shocking, Um, when you experience something like depression and you you know, you come at the other end, but you're never going ever again to be somebody who doesn't know that that black pape plays exists and is a possible place for

you to go. And you know, jet At and that's that's not so much in letters to a young poet, but darkness, the darkness that is part of life was also something that Realka is great about, um, you know. And so in that way, I have not had um, a kind of you know, kind of clinical depression. I have not fallen all the way into that blackpool against for a long time, but it never It's always a part of who I am, you know, and I partly

have not fallen into that place. I've certainly, you know, I think The thing is, I certainly have stood on that precipice. The thing is, I know I know where I'm standing now right and it's through a huge amount of self care, you know, in self knowledge, um, and you know, some of it very practical, just how much exercise I get and how much sleep I get, and and and I know the cost of of overdoing it.

Um and then I don't know. I'm in my fifties now, and I'm I'm finding I didn't like the idea of turning fifty at all, but I'm finding I am finding getting older to be this really wonderful thing where you just more and more can relax into things as they are and calmed down. And um uh, I don't push myself as hard as I used to. I'm not as hard on myself as I used to. And that was a part of my depression. So there's something that happens with age that is healing. Um. But it's huge, and

and it's in many I mean, it's made me. This is one of the one of the thoughts that comes through in all of my conversations is you know, the things that go wrong for us become part of our capacity to be compassionate towards others, Like they become part of our gift to the world if we let them. Uh. And that's absolutely true our depression for me, I agree, Certainly, the struggles and challenges I've had in life are a

huge part of who I become. There's another thing that you've talked about that I this right on topic with this, that I really I really liked. And you listed a bunch of people we would all recognize as great teachers or leaders, and you say that they became what they became not in spite of the hardships that they faced, but because of them. Yeah. Well, I I don't believe in saints and I really love uh, I love a

I don't know. I don't want to say. I don't like the way we use the word sainthood or heroism or um. There's a phrase I love of Einstein. He talked about spiritual genius um, and that that's that the spiritual geniuses of the ages are more, uh more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the purveyors of objective knowledge. And he was talking about Gandhi, who was alive in his lifetime. He was talking about Jesus and Moses and Buddha and St. Francis of ASSISI.

But the thing is um, whether you want to list saints or spiritual geniuses, whether it's Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr. You know, or Einstein in his ways, these were all deeply flawed human beings, right. You know the saints are saints, aren't born. You know that the and and and that path, the spiritual genius um is one through being fully human and wrestling with all the things that we all wrestle with um. And that's just it. It's so it's so important to remember and not to

put anyone up on a pedestal in that sense. Yeah. Gandhi has uh Gandhi as a quote that makes me laugh every time I hear it, and he says that he was exposed to the principles of non violence non violence through his marriage, which was just just. And actually I think the truth is that's probably where he was least effective. Oh exactly, Yeah, you read his biography clearly is not. Yeah, but I think that's just I read that, And I'm sure he hadn't meant that to be funny,

because it is really funny. Probably not his wife though, No, she may not have thought that was so funny. The other thing, you you were, you just led into this idea of spiritual genius. I'd like to ask you what spiritual is an interesting word that I never can find a better one. And yet I'm always curious as to how people define that word. Do you have any working definition of that word that works for you? Oh, it's

a good question. Um. A lot of people used to ask me ten years ago when I started the show, there was a big curiosity about what's the you know, what's the difference between religion and spirituality? And and I don't I don't hear people worrying about that so much anymore, you know, my I think to give a short answer that it's a symbiotic relationship. Often it's not necessarily neither or um. But I do think there's a greater uh,

I don't know, I say tolerance. There's there's a that the words spirituality has taken on some depths and integrity in the culture at large that it didn't have just a few years ago, which is interesting. Um. And I really think that the kind of spiritual the searching spiritual energy of American culture has has really there's been a real evolution from I mean, I kind of mean that the spirituality that's happening outside institutions, although a lot of

it's also happening inside institutions. But you know, from the from the new age of the eighties, which was a very suspected in many ways, you know, it was really superficial, a lot of it, of course, not all of it. Um. And somebody talking to me about spiritual promiscuity, um, which I thought at the time, I thought it was a great phrase. But but but there's been this evolution. And here's the thing. We twenty one century people are have a freedom to choose and create our spiritual lives. That

is completely unprecedented. Right until not that long ago, our parents and grandparents were mostly you know, spiritual life and tradition was inherited. It was like you had blue eyes and you not only were Christian or Jewish, but you went to this church or that synagogue that your parents and grandparents have gone to before you. Um. So, so we were figuring this out, and I think there is

an increasing amount of integrity to talking about spirituality. Again that happens outside traditional institutions, but also is becoming a force of renewal inside a lot of institutions. Um, you know, challenge and renewal. And I don't know what do I mean? I mean, I I you know, I think atheists have spiritual lives, or can have spiritual lives. Some some of them might not want to use that language. Some of them are very happy with that language. Um, so it's

definitely not synonymous with religion. I guess, you know. I think it's the inner work. It's the inner work that accompanies the outer work of our lives. The truth is that our traditions are religious traditions, and our spiritual traditions are these vast repositories that have been thinking about that and asking questions about it, and creating rituals and creating

communities around it for thousands of years. So they are these repositories, and it's you know, it's no accident that that we turn to them or that or that they are the places where people find this often. In the first instance, we had a we had another guest on Who's who. I don't even think he meant to, but he said something that just so hit me. I was like, that, so it's my my current working definition of what spirituality is. And he he said, spirituality is simply the recognition that

happiness doesn't come from things on the outside. Yeah, And I was like, that kind of does nail it for me. It's it's that there's this interior life. That that's where you know, the true happiness and true joy comes from. And if we're not tending that field, we're not going to grow those plants, so to speak. Yeah, it might be interesting to start collecting definitions of that. Yeah, I know, I think it would be interesting too, because it's a

term that I agree with you. I'm becoming more comfortable with it, I think as the times evolved, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it because it's so I guess back to our earlier point about being comfortable with ambiguity. But it's a pretty ambiguous term. Yeah, it really is. Well, I think that, Um, we're we're nearing our time here. So I wanted to thank you for, uh for coming

on the show. Uh. The last thing I was going to get to, and I think we've covered it simply by doing it, is that you've mentioned that, Uh, you think that humor is a is a spiritual virtue, which I often think is a very underappreciated humor or levity is a highly underappreciated spiritual virtue. And that's one of the things I like about listening to you is you you laugh often. Well, thank you. I when I first

started my show in public radio. All these dour public radio programmers were so worried that this would be too serious and so earnest and and some of them still say it is, and I do that just tells me they haven't been listening. But you know what I say is I have never met a wise person. And wisdom is something you know when you see it who does not smile easily and know how to laugh, including to

laugh at themselves. And then I did uh for years one of my dream people, I wanted to interview with Desmond too too, and I finally sat down across from him a few years ago, and he told me uncategorically that God has a sense of humor. And of course he just embodied that you sit with him and and he's one of the most joyful, funny people you've ever met, alongside all his gravity. Right again, there's another paradox, right, Those two things don't cancel each other out day, enliven

each other. And I have to say that when Desmond Tutu tells you God has a sense of humor, you believe him. So I'm not telling you I would I would agree. I think that there is humor. Humor everywhere, and it's one of the very best parts of life. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate this. I'm so happy for your project and I'm glad. I'm honored that you want me to be part of it. Well, thank you so much. It's it's certainly an honor for us to have you, so we will we will talk again.

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