Krista Tippett: That hope has evolutionary force, that we can participate in evolution consciously, actively, and by virtue of the quality of our relationships — let these thrilling, unnerving notions settle in you, and see if they begin to shift how you approach and give meaning to your smallest interactions, as well as your most soaring aspirations. And consider this thought experiment offered at the On Being Gathering in 2018, by John Paul Lederach.

John Paul Lederach: So the critical mass, actually, in physics, it’s not the quantity. It’s the quality of a particular interaction that creates the replication of energy. But we have under-attended to creating the quality that recuperates the trust that we need to build what you call, Krista, the connective tissue. So that’s the notion of critical yeast — the “yeast” word was simply to create the provocation.

There’s a lot of questions around yeast. First of all, yeast, if it sits in a jar, is useless. So it’s not yeast, per se. You have to take the yeast out of the jar, and then you have to prepare it. And typically you do that with a little bit of moisture, a little bit of sugar, and not too much burning light. So you’re actually talking about kind of a preparatory space that we don’t often want to do. And then, when you put it in the mass, you mix it. But you never accept the first mix or two.

And so just the metaphors kind of captured imagination about what, actually, people who were in a situation where they felt that there were only a few of them could understand that this may in fact be the ingredient that makes everything else grow. And how do you attend to that quality? That was really what critical yeast was about — quality of relationship.