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March 13, 2020

A Listening Care Package for Uncertain Times

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The meaning of the Inuit word “qarrtsiluni” conjures up a striking image: “sitting together in the dark, waiting for something to happen.” Teju Cole shares the word in his On Being conversation, and it’s been increasingly resonant in the months and weeks since COVID-19 began affecting communities across the…

July 25, 2019

Loitering

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https://onbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Loitering-for-CD.mp3 I’m sitting at a café in Detroit where in the door window is the sign with the commands NO SOLICITING NO LOITERING stacked like an anvil. I have a fiscal relationship with this establishment, which I developed by buying a coffee, and which makes…

July 25, 2019

Name: Kayte Young; Phone Number: 555-867-5309

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https://onbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/555-867-5309-for-CD.mp3 Today I was sitting down to a meeting with my friends Dave and Kayte to discuss the excerpt of Kayte’s graphic novel our little press is going to publish. When Kayte pulled the box from her bag that contains all her beautifully drawn pages, her…

July 25, 2019

“Joy Is Such a Human Madness”

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https://onbeing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Joy-Is-Such-a-Human-Madness-for-CD.mp3 Editor’s note: The audio above begins midway through the essay. So writes Zadie Smith toward the end of her beautiful essay “Joy.” She gets there by explaining that she has an almost constitutional proclivity toward being pleased. She is a delight to cook for, she suggests, because your…

June 5, 2019

Three Callings for Your Life and for Our Time

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“The life-giving, lifelong work of being ever more deeply human is work you do in service to our beautiful, hurting world.” Krista Tippett offers three callings for the class of 2019 at Middlebury College.

May 24, 2019

Life Isn’t a Straight Line — How to Chart Your Own ‘River of Life’

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This exercise is designed to help you reflect on your life and tell your story.

May 8, 2019

Finding Calm and Contemplation in the Classroom, with Poetry

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“Poetry,” says David Whyte, “is language against which you have no defenses.” Poetry can also help us find our center after a chaotic moment — like recess. That’s the kind of space poetry provided for fourth- and fifth-grade students at The Juniper School in Durango, Colorado, last month. Every day,…

May 2, 2019

Why We Should Talk More About Death (and How to Get Started)

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Why do we find it so difficult to talk about death? For as universal as death is, Americans seem to hesitate to acknowledge its place in our lives. In a national survey conducted by The Conversation Project last year, 92 percent of respondents said they think it’s important to have…

April 5, 2019

Of the Training of Black Men

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At the beginning of the 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois asks, "what training for the profitable living together of black men and white?"

April 5, 2019

Of Our Spiritual Strivings

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The iconic essay that offered the world the language and concept of "double consciousness."

January 28, 2019

Marking 15 Years With a New Gathering Place

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A letter from Krista Tippett about our reimagined digital home and what we’re building next.

January 28, 2019

A New Chapter for The Civil Conversations Project

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A letter from new Executive Director Lucas Johnson.

January 27, 2019

Love and Fire

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What is it that we are to do with grief? We can turn it inward, making prisoners of our own bodies. We can turn it against others. I want to believe that we can also be transformed by loss.

January 27, 2019

Being Lonely

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What does it mean to remain faithful to our shyness? When feeling at home in ourselves is different from feeling at home in the world.

January 27, 2019

Christian, Conservative, Treehugger

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Exhausted, we all sat down for dinner at the end of a whirlwind day that had spanned two continents. Our jet-lagged group included Republican lawmakers, the chief policy voice for a major evangelical organization, and a couple of folks like me with ties to the right-leaning non-profit that had helped…

January 27, 2019

Parenting in the Aftermath of Trauma

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I thought perfection was the glue of secure attachment, that rewriting the story was the hallmark of redemption. But when I stopped running from the mother I didn’t want to be — when I forgave my mother for the narrative she unknowingly authored — I could finally give my son what he needed all along: my presence.

January 27, 2019

A Way Back to the Wildness of Death

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In a culture that encourages us to be passive bystanders in our mourning, green burials present an alternative that fosters meaningful connection — to ourselves and to the earth.

December 11, 2018

Advent Manifesto: Does My Soul Still Sing?

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A century of reflections.

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