Good Life Project - Krista Tippett: Becoming Wise

Episode Date: April 4, 2016

Today's conversation features Krista Tippett, a Peabody-award-winning broadcaster, New York Times bestselling author, and National Humanities Medalist.As the creator and host of public radio’s On Being, she takes up the great questions of meaning amidst the political, economic, cultural, and technological shifts of 21st century life.In 2013, Krista took On Being and its emergent Civil Conversations Project into independent production, creating "a social enterprise with a radio show at its heart." She grew up in Oklahoma, attended Brown University, was a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin, and holds a masters of divinity from Yale.Her books include Einstein's God, Speaking of Faith, and most recently Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.In This episode, You’ll Learn:Lessons she drew from her hellfire and brimstone Southern Baptist grandfather.Her experience being in East Germany while the wall was still up.What drew her to divinity school.Why pitching her idea for On Being was a hard sell in the early 1990's.Why it took 2 years to convince her to release the long form, unedited content of her show and why this resonates with listeners.What essential quality she thinks is a mark of wisdom.Why leaning into mystery, being fully grounded in our bodies, and returning to the beloved community are so crucial today.How joy and hope play into the attainment and expression of wisdom.Mentioned In This Episode: Rachel Naomi Remen — Listening GenerouslyRobert Cialdini - consistency principleThe research of Richard DavidsonJonathan's conversation with Liz Gilbert Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Charge time and actual results will vary. You know, hope for me is reality-based. I don't use the word language of optimism. It's not wishful thinking. It's deciding I'm going to live by this vision and I'm going to point at it when I see it. I'm going to embody it when I can. This is what I'm going to move towards and, you know, hopefully be infectious in that, encouraging others to move towards. So it's not something you have to have given to you, but it is something you have to claim. Today's episode of Good Life Project is actually brought to you by Camp GLP, which is short for Camp Good Life Project. So for three and a half days at the end of August, we're taking over this gorgeous 130 acre summer camp. And it's about 90 minutes outside of New York City to create the ultimate summer camp for grownups and entrepreneurs and makers and aspiring world shakers. And last year, we had about 350 amazing campers from

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or just go ahead and click the link in your show notes now. On to our show. This week's guest, Krista Tippett, grew up in Oklahoma in a Southern Baptist community where she was steeped in faith. But when she entered her adult year, she left it behind to become a journalist and work in the world of politics in a thened East and West Germany, where she started out in the BBC and the New York Times, and then eventually working with the ambassador in West Germany. She spent a lot of time going between both sides of the wall, making deep friendships, became fascinated and inspired by how people on one side could live with seemingly so much under such constrained conditions, yet still find a way to embrace their

humanity and sense of lightness and spirituality. That led her back to faith and an advanced degree in divinity, and then to blend her background in spirituality and faith and journalism, to start to create public conversations with some extraordinarily wise thinkers. And that led to what has now become an incredible public radio and podcast phenomenon called On Being. She lays out a lot of the wisdom. She details a solid chunk of her own life in a new book called Becoming Wise. Our conversation covers a lot of ground and so excited to share it with you, not only because there's so much wisdom around the idea of living good life, but also on a personal level. When I was starting Good Life Project,

I had already been listening to Krista's On Being for a number of years. And the way she was able to create a gentle, generous, safe container for her guests was something that deeply inspired me and the way that I approach trying on some level to create something similar with the guests that we host here. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. You know, I thought kind of an interesting jumping off point for us is a bit of a variation of how you jump off with pretty much all of your guests. As we were just sharing really briefly before we started recording, you've got a new book out and you're transparent on a level that really you haven't been in the past, at least from what I've seen. And so I want to take a bit of a step back. You have shared at various points in time that you're the granddaughter of a Southern

Baptist preacher, and you're raised in a, quote, religion-soaked culture. And in this new book, there's a moment where you write, and I'm going to read this actually, My Southern Baptist preacher grandfather had a love of play, a corny laugh, and a lusty passion for my grandmother. His presence was a counterpoint to his theology, which was underpinned by a joke-killing litany of rules. So my curiosity is, I'd love to know a bit more about your grandfather and your relationship with him and how his influence on, what his influence was on your early lens on faith and spirituality. So there's the true story, and then there's the way I've processed it over time.

So what's interesting about that is that— Isn't that always the case, right? Well, that's always true, right? It's memory. You know, what is memory? So as honest as I can be right now at this moment in time, you know, I mean, my grandfather was—he was this very three-dimensional kind of technicolor figure in my childhood, but it was full of mixed messages. He was, you know, he was a hellfire and brimstone preacher. And he did have all these rules, which my parents didn't follow all his rules. So I didn't experience them as quite as oppressive as my mother did, having grown up having to follow them.

But even so, my parents were always kind of sneaking around to do things like drink a glass of wine. You know, he would come over and they would take the wine out of the refrigerator or, you know, the one time they forgot it was this major incident. You know, but he didn't, you know, basically everything was a slippery slope to sex or addiction. And that included, you know, not just kissing, but dancing or wearing shorts. And addiction was, you know, it wasn't, it was, you know, not ever taking a single sip of anything alcoholic and not playing cards. I mean, all these different paths to addiction. But the, you know, one thing I've understood over time is that in, you know, he came from his parents and his family had come in Oklahoma in a covered wagon. They'd really been, you know, dirt poor, quite literally. And there's a lot of addiction in his family. And there was no remedy for addiction. And,

you know, there was no birth control. And if you got pregnant under the wrong circumstances, it did devastate people. I've seen in hindsight that there was some sense to that. But what it came across to me as was just a sense of the world as a perilous place. And kind of almost everything you did was fraught with danger. And then on the other hand, my grandfather was passionate, and he was funny. He told very corny jokes. He did adore my grandmother. You know, he was full of passion. And I identified with that. I respected that, even when I couldn't respect exactly the sense he was making about that. And so, you know, what I realized in hindsight is that all those kinds of mixed messages were in also my understanding of, you know, who God was and what it was to be religious. Yeah, I mean, it also, it seems like it's also, it's filtered through to your lens on life. I mean, kind of hearing you go deeper into describing this duality, which I guess we all have on some level.

You know, when I kind of zoom the lens out and look at your journey, especially earlier in life, at least from what I know of it, you know, it's fascinating to me that you have this, you know, obviously incredibly adventurous and lively side to you, you know, which led you to A Divided Germany, which led you to be a journalist and to, you know, a stringer for The New York Times. And what's interesting to me at the same time is, you know, you described him as Hellfire and Brimstone, sort of the classic. And just your demeanor of sort of grace and ease and peace and stillness is so contrary to that, that in an interesting way, it's almost like I perceive a similar duality in you. Well, that's interesting. I'll have to think about that. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, the thing that I've thought about is that,

you know, he was the world was a fearful place for him. And the other thing I should say is, I think he had a really big, lovely mind, but he had a second grade education. So he wasn't trained to use it. And I think he was also kind of scared to use it. And one thing that has occurred to me is that I've done some of the things I've done in part kind of for him, you know, wishing that he had had the freedom and the ease and could have let go of the fear to be, I think, bigger, to which he was so equipped to be. Yeah. Do you feel like he came to that place later in life? I know you've written about how later in life when he retired from preaching that he, from what I recall, you say he was a cattle farmer and a pecan grower.

I mean, it was just a couple of acres, right? It wasn't so, I mean, it's true that he also was able to have, take a joy and, you know, he built these bird houses and I had no attention span for it. And my parents had no attention span for it. But this is very intricate, you know, working with wood, working with birds. So I think I did see a side of him that actually knew how to enjoy life after he retired from preaching. And, you know, he was there with his pecan trees and his vegetable garden and his bird houses. And he was a happy person. So as you moved forward through life, you ended up going to Brown, and as mentioned before, moving to journalism,

and then heading over to Germany, where from whatever you call it, you were with the BBC, and then special assistant to the ambassador in West Germany. I guess it was right before, or shortly in the years before the wall came down. Yeah, it was in the years before it was the years when the wall was there. Yeah. So I guess, you know, part of my curiosity there also is, and it sounds like during this window of time, it was a window where you grew up sort of, you know, in this religion soaked culture and then, but it sounds like you really largely left it behind during this moment in your life. I totally left it behind. And it felt to me like, you know, the religious world of my childhood was not just church on Sundays. It was an entire social universe. And when I left that place, you know, the theology, the doctrine that had been part of it outside its context didn't make sense.

So I didn't have any kind of violent rejection of it. It just felt irrelevant to me. And I was discovering so many things that were so exciting and so captivating and so relevant with a capital R. So, yeah, for about 10 years, I didn't think much about religion. And I was fully engaged with things that were largely political and non-religious. And that was very gratifying. It was exciting. Yeah. I mean, especially where you were and during the window of time when you were there. I mean, I'm fascinated by how you experienced living and moving between a nation at once divided by such profound differences, but also bound by this common heritage and change and how that moved into and through you and how that changed you if it did.

Yeah, I, there were, well, I guess, you know, it's kind of the way I describe my grandfather. And it's kind of the way the world is. There were all these different layers of reality. And I was very fortunate to kind of be in the right place at the right time. And to be, end up, there weren't a lot of stringers based in Berlin. Everybody, Western journalists were based in Bonn at that point. So I was able to go there as kind of a, you know, 20 something person with with a few connections, but basically kind of be everybody's stringer in Berlin. And that was amazing. And that also allowed me to get to know the diplomatic worlds. And yeah, and ultimately have this job where I was special assistant and writing speeches and kind of doing analysis that was going back to Washington. And my last year there was special assistant to our ambassador, who was based in Bonn, but he was in Berlin a lot. He was a nuclear arms expert. And so I was working at this very, I was present at this very, very high level of policy. And of course, it was exhilarating on some level. But I was so idealistic, and I was quite disturbed, unsettled by the human dynamics of that. And also the contrast I saw between the very developed outer lives. I was really close to people who had these great big professional lives.

They were experts. But I was close enough to see that they didn't bring that development to their inner life or their personal life. And I was at that age in my mid-20s where I'm trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And I was with people who really represented the pinnacle of success. If I was on a fast track, that's what I would be, and that's who I would be with.

And that kind of led to a bit of a crisis. I mean, really, are these the people I want to surround myself with for the rest of my career? And then at the same time, at the human level, kind of on the ground where people lived, I was fortunate to really know people and love people on both sides of the wall. I always had great visas as a journalist and then as a diplomat. And I saw this, you know, this kind of spiritual moral truth played out in very dramatic terms in Divided Berlin, where you really had people divided down the middle, who were so much alike. They were the same people, but they had been cast into completely contrasting circumstances. And I saw very vividly that, you know, you could be on the western side

of the wall, and you could have everything, as we say, and you could be on the eastern side of the wall, and you could have nothing. But that did not determine the dignity or the beauty of the lives people created. You know, that was something that was always up to the person. And it was, of course, circumstances affected you, but that they did not define the quality of life you could create and the richness of the life you could create on a, you know, on a human level. So I was working with those, all that different kind of input. And also just being able to dissociate circumstance from experience and contentment, fulfillness, you know, that's something that most people never land on. So to like, to be able to see that, you know, in your 20s through sort of a

an extreme political and geographic situation is pretty powerful. Yeah, I guess you're right. It was just a very unusual setting, and I just kind of wandered into it. But I'm glad now. Yeah. So that then served as the genesis for your sort of return to the study of faith, or return to an interest in faith, at least. Yes. Yeah.

So eventually after I started thinking about this, first I wouldn't have used the word spiritual even. It took me a little while to realize that that's what I was coming back to. But, and I, you know, I did a lot of reading and investigating and then, and ultimately I really said if I was really taking this as seriously as it felt like I was, not just in terms of my inner life, but in terms of still this thing I was thinking about that we're all thinking about in our 20s, like, you know, what do I want to do with my life? Where do I want to make an imprint. And I eventually realized that I had to, just from the way I am, I need to really dig into this and explore it. And getting a theological education seemed like the right

way to go for me at that point. Yeah, when you kind of committed to yourself to that path, you know, it's interesting when most people hear somebody is going to go and pursue an advanced degree in divinity, I guess the assumption is, well, then you're going to pursue a career in faith as a leader, as some sort of faith-based leader. But what's fascinating to me is that it doesn't sound like that's why you went into it. And then when you came out of it, rather than saying, okay, I want to, you know, play a role as a minister or preacher or leader within a particular faith or tradition, you decided that you wanted to sort of take on the role of the questioner of those same people instead. Yeah, I didn't completely rule out. I mean, I kind of went to Divinity School the way

I went to Divided Berlin, which was in a mode of exploration. Let's have an adventure. And I absolutely thought, you know, maybe what will happen is I'll get ordained like most of the people who are going to Divinity School. But that wasn't why I went. And I guess one thing that if you're not going to Divinity School with that aim, it doesn't, I mean, it did aim, it did provide exactly what I was looking for, that deep dive into the discipline of theology and thinking this through and understanding theology and the sweep of human history of taking up these questions

and these sacred texts and how they emerged and how they work and notions of community and the very rigorous thinking that is there in theology about the human condition. Like, I found that all exhilarating, you know, more exhilarating than I'd imagined. But it doesn't actually qualify you to do anything. So, when I came out of that, you know, the thing I was still qualified to be was a journalist. So, then I was a journalist with a theological education. And that was okay. I mean, it's not what I had expected, but, you know, it eventually led me to this, which is a way to bring those things together. Although I did not, it was years before I, this vision hatched, you know, that this is

how I would bring these things together formally. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need them.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple watch series 10 is here it has the biggest display ever it's also the thinnest apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Although it seems like the idea of you, there's this through line of you being led by questions rather than seeking to be the person who delivers answers.

It seems like you're the person who's constantly seeking to ask questions, better questions. you were seeking your own answers? Or was it because you found yourself with a certain set of skills and a certain background that would allow you to maybe ask questions and have conversations that would in some way have a bigger impact beyond you? Gosh, I don't know. You're framing these things in ways I've never thought about before, which is great. One thing that comes to mind is I did grow up in this environment where basically what we worked with were answers. Right. It's like these are the rules. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Things were answered and your job was to understand the answers better. I mean, you could dig into the answers, but you weren't ever questioning them and questions in and of themselves didn't have value. And so, you know, it's like sometimes people say, oh, you're such a good listener. You must have grown up in a family of great listeners. And in fact, I'm the opposite thing where I grew up where nobody was a good listener. And so I became a good listener kind of in response. And I think that's probably true of my love of questions. You know, when I went to college, having not had much of an education for my first 12 years, going to a place where I was taught that questions were powerful and that I was going to be judged on

the force of my questions and my willingness to kind of follow my questions all the way through to the end, you know, that was thrilling. And I think you're right that I have, that is my passion and that's the passion I've pursued. Yeah, which actually, you know, it really, it tees up why you would have taken the path you've taken. It's really interesting because right now, you know, On Being is this, you know it really it tees up why you would have taken the path you've taken it's really interesting because right now you know on being is this you know kind of public radio juggernaut

and now podcast juggernaut and you're reaching new audiences in all different ways but when you started you know this was you playing that role was a bit of an anomaly, wasn't it? Yeah, I was basically a guerrilla warrior for quite a few years. It just, there wasn't any model in public radio for taking on these topics. And I think more to the point, culturally in the 90s, which is when I started thinking about this early 2000s, we were just in this terrible toxic place of setting up very strident voices, you know, both to speak for religion or against religion. But these were very polarizing discussions and inflammatory discussions. And so when I started saying, look, we have to find new ways to talk about this, and it must be possible to speak of these things in public. values that public radio models in general of, you know, intelligence and balance and something that would open imaginations rather than shut them down. But it was a hard sell. It was hard to imagine. And I understood that it was hard to imagine. Right, because when you when you look at the news now, whether it's print, or whether it's radio, whether it's TV, you know, and to this day, it seems like the rule is still, I mean,

we can bring the presidential election into it, you know, the loudest, the most polarizing, the most provocative voices are the ones that get attention across the media. And it seems like the assumption has been that if you want to build a successful presence in any form of media, that that's where you have to focus. So it feels like you tapped into this, you know, undercurrent of people who just say, I want something different. I want what you're using your words, I want wisdom, I want quieter, gentler, deeper thinkers who have something extraordinary to say, but aren't on the extreme ends, you know, where we can actually have a conversation rather than just fighting over positioning points. And that's very rare. There's very little in public radio even that is actually one conversation for the whole hour. Terry Gross does that sometimes, but not every show. And people would say, you know, people will have to listen to this. And it's true on many levels that, you know, we have now been attuned, we're accustomed to information and entertainment coming at us in bite-sized pieces

and being accessible and being entertaining. And I think that it's true, you know, that I would not expect or insist that people should be listening to something dives deep and, yes, that is gentle. So yes, even when we first started putting this show on the air, I'm sure if I listened to those early shows, I would just find it appalling. But there were immediately people who said, yeah, you know, yes, we want to be talking about this. We want to be talking about this in public. We want to be talking, we want this to be part of public radio. So that is actually why it got to keep going, because there are always those people who resonated and spoke up. Yeah, I love that. And I think also sort of building on that, you know, now with the emergence of podcasts and various other forms of audio, where you're seeing a renaissance of long form.

You are. It's so interesting. Content. Yeah. And it's I think it really speaks to that. There's I think people have wanted this for a long time. It's so interesting. keep hearing all over the place, this deeper yearning for, can we just go deeper and be a little more real and also be a little more gentle and respectful in the way that we build conversations. And so it's fun to see podcasting, you know, certainly many of the top shows are, you know,

a lot of the public radio shows that are segmented, but also you're seeing these really long forms, which actually brings me to a fascination with something that a choice that you made with your show a couple of years back now, I guess maybe it's more than that. You started releasing not only the finished episodes at about an hour, but the rough cuts, which are very often close to an hour and a half of just letting the tape roll. What was behind that and what's been the response to those versions? Because I honestly, I actually, I prefer listening to the rough cuts of your shows. I think it's so, you're one of those people, it makes me so nervous. Well, because they're so messy, right?

Because, well, you know, I mean, when I'm doing the original interview, because I know it's 90 minutes and because I know we're going to have to get it down to something like 45 minutes of conversation for a 52-minute radio hour, it can wander. And I can let people go down some side road that I'm pretty sure is not going to lead us anywhere, but it just might. And we have the time to do that. And I will kind of sometimes blather on a bit just to kind of let them relax and start reacting to me instead of thinking about being the person who has to answer a question. You know, all these things. I know you're familiar with all of this. This was my colleague, Trent Gillis, who actually had to talk to me and our producers for two years to convince us that this was a good idea. And what's been interesting about it is I think even for people who don't listen to the unedited, it engenders trust just that we're willing to put that out there.

And that's been so interesting to see. I think that is also a byproduct of this media barrage that we all experience all the time. There's a lot of mistrust out there. And that has kind of showed people that we, you know, when we talk about transparency and authenticity and integrity, we're willing to kind of put the mess out there and let that be on record too. Yeah. And also I think the vulnerability, you know, it's, you know, what's interesting is that I think listening to your rough cuts, this has an interesting effect on me as somebody who's, you know, trying to build my own body of work. It's in that it let me see your humanity on a more visceral level. And in doing so, something triggered in me that said, it's okay to let that part of myself through as well. Sort of like you've gone before me. I love that. That means a lot to me. Yeah, because I'm not polished in the unedited,

right? The show version is a kind of polished gem. Yeah. I found it just both fascinating and also permission-giving in an interesting way. I love that. Thank you. Thanks for telling me that. One of the things that you also obsess about is, and we've talked about your, you love questioning, but it seems like language. And this is one of the things you write about on words and questions, like on words and questions and language and listening, you know, the other side of questions is the listening side. And that's something you explore a lot. And you write about a lot, and you speak about a lot. And you also don't speak about a lot, because you're busy listening. You use the phrase, I think

it came when through a conversation you had with Rachel Naomi Remen, generous questions. Yes, generous listening. Take me into that a little bit. Yeah, well, generous listening, which is a phrase of Rachel Naomi Remen, who's a physician who's really helping, among other things, she's helped kind of young, new doctors and nurses get back in touch with the original impulse to being a doctor or a nurse, which is to be a healer. He talks about the healer's art. But medical school strangely disconnects people from that impulse and from the notion of art. And I think you could say the same of a lot of our institutions and disciplines. They kind of disconnect us from that

core of human passion and longing and service. And one of the things she tries to teach people is what she calls generous listening. And in that context, in the medical context, you know, doctors have intake when somebody comes presenting with a condition. And basically, there's a checklist of things you have to learn about them. But rather than just it being this pro forma experience, she teaches people to know more about the story behind the person, behind the illness, which in fact always determines, you know, makes every course of illness and every potential for healing different. And I think you can extrapolate that again to all of our disciplines and endeavors. So some of the things I started to learn through

that with Rachel that I've continued to learn from many other people is, you know, just this notion that listening is not just about being quiet and waiting while the other person for the other person to say what they have to say. It's really about being present. It's about being present to the fullness of who this person is. It's about being in the room with who you are, you know, not pretending that you can, because that's what we do a lot. We pretend like we can bracket that off, but we don't. And then we end up being inauthentic

and we actually end up being not as effective with each other. So yeah, generosity is about much more than silence or speaking a question. It's about much more than the words that pass between you. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm curious whether you've observed this also. It feels like that listening is a bit of a lost art these days and that when you do create that container where you're really present and you're engaged and you're not constantly checking your device, but you just say, okay, it's me, it's you, and you've got me. It's so rare these days that there's a level of safety and generosity, using Rachel's words, that's disarming for people because it's just so rare. It's irresistible. But we don't have that experience very often. And I think sometimes because we don't have that experience, you're so right, it's a lost art and we have to recultivate it. And because we're untrusting, there's the work of becoming listeners.

And then there's also the work of, I think, creating circumstances for that to happen, for people to, you know, for you to create something trustworthy and for people to believe in that, to be able to feel like they can relax. I mean, we've all, for a few generations here, we've been raised and trained in so many ways to be advocates for who we are and what we believe and what we care about. And there is absolutely so much good that's brought into the world through that. But we need more of an ecosystem of skills and curiosity about each other than that to create the common life that I think we actually want. You know, in fact, the common life that we want and need to achieve a lot of our our highest ideals so so so getting into so becoming cultivating the art of listening actually asks us to put to one side some things that have become very instinctual and that you know we feel a lot of righteous indignation about our ability to speak up and defend and present.

And again, we need to do that, but that's not all we need to do with each other. Yeah, I so agree. It brings up the work of Robert Cialdini and sort of his work on influence. And one of the things that he talks about is what he calls a consistency principle, where once you've said or done something publicly, even small, that you feel compelled to continue to speak and act consistently with that thing. And it's almost like you need to create deliberate opportunities to just pause and listen to start to disarm that pattern so that you actually do open yourself to the possibility of something else and the

possibility of change and the possibility of serendipity or something better. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I hadn't heard of him. So, and that kind of leads to, you know, it seems like your questioning has also led you to an exploration and a bit of an exaltation of the idea of mystery, of exploring living in mystery or uncertainty. You had a great line. I think it was in response to who you seek to have conversations with in an interview in Washington Post. I think it was a couple years back. And you described the people as people who really honor mystery.

What is it that draws you to mystery? Well, I would say that probably in those years in which I turned my back on spiritual life and religion and didn't think such things were relevant, I think that I, you know, I bought into an idea that is embedded in some of our, you know, best public institutions that this is the thing we bracket out of our public life and of our official life. And I just don't think that's actually reality-based, because I think that mystery is a common human experience. And you can imbue it with a transcendent meaning or not, but being born is mysterious.

Falling in love is mysterious. Dying is mysterious. And there are lots of things in between. And so I actually think that acknowledging a group, scientists are the people I interview who have the most robust and actually delighted vocabulary of mystery. And so it is not something that is in contrast to a life of the mind. And I mean, I can keep connecting dots. I also have become aware. So I think the religious among us

and the theologians actually could benefit, could learn something from how scientists take delight in what they don't know. Like that is a great adventure. I once interviewed this geneticist who was also an Anglican priest. And he said to me that he thought the spirituality of a scientist was like the spirituality of a mystic. And that is to say that at any given moment, you're always delving as deeply as you can into what you can know and what you know to be true. And you're mining that and you're living by it. And at the same time, you know, you're holding that in this creative tension with what you do

not yet cannot yet understand, you know, what you may never be able to tie up in this lifetime. And you honor that and you appreciate it. And I think that scientists are good at, you know, precisely holding together that creative tension. And what I also see is that at the heart of our religious traditions, you know, our most venerable institutions, the monotheistic institutions, certainly, at the very orthodox core, there is an insistence just like that, that, you know, yes, you know, there are truths that are big enough, you know, that they're worth living for and maybe dying for. But that you are always called to hold that, to stand there together with, again, not just an acknowledgement, but a celebration that there are things we do not understand, will not understand in this lifetime. And that's the great adventure.

And so I feel like if more religious people, I feel like this actually could allow deeply religious people to navigate the 21st century with, you know, with courage and delight, kind of bringing the depths of these traditions at their best, you know, into courage and delight, kind of bringing the depths of these traditions at their best, you know, into our common life. I mean, notions like compassion and forgiveness and empathy that, you know, in the 21st century, science is studying these things. I mean, these are actually kind of qualities that we need to inhabit a globalized world. So bringing the depths of tradition in, you know, yes, believing what you believe, knowing what you know, but also, you know,

just knowing that you can also live and honor the mystery of difference, the mystery of religious others, the mystery of these unanswered questions in our common life. I think that's a recipe for graceful living and for peaceful living. So I think of mystery as something,

on the one hand, very ordinary and also powerful in ways that we haven't thought about. Yeah, and I so resonate with that. And I also see, I see mystery as the, sort of the necessary building block for possibility. You know? If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, sort of the necessary building block, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors.

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. I had the opportunity to sit down with Milton Glaser a couple years back, and during the conversation, he uttered these words, certainty is a closing of the mind. And it just really, it landed, you know, and that phrase has never left me, because if you're, if you can't live in that space of the mystery, of the not knowing, then the moment you close that, the moment you say, I have the answers, there's nothing to know. You've closed the doors to possibility and connection and meaning. really the elevation in your work of mystery and exploring, having conversations with people who,

who also really live in that space, because those are conversations that I feel are steeped in possibility. And, and, man, we really need that these days. You also, you also brought up the, use the word delight. And I think one of the things that's always resonated with me with your work, and with many of the guests that you have is there's – and I don't know if you do this deliberately. I'm curious. But you've spent time with so many people who just sort of giggle. I know. It's true.

You know? It's like Desmond Tutu, Father Greg Boyle. It seems like the Jesuits especially. Aren't they great? They're so funny. They seem so light and funny and playful. Yeah. Is that something that you sort of deliberately look to?

Well, I would say that was a discovery that actually led me to want to do the radio show. Because, again, I'm thinking about this in the mid-90s. I've come out of studying theology. What passes for religious discourse and religious voices in our public life is, you know, hateful and strident, toxic. And then I got sent off on this oral history project for these Benedictines. You know, I think monastics are kind of a clue to the secrets of the universe, which I kind of get into in my book a little bit. You know, they're spiritual rebels. They are the original spiritual rebels. And anyway, so these Benedictines

had this ecumenical institute, which you've never heard of, but it had, you know, created these incredible ripple effects all through the world in the mid 20th century. And one of the common denominators, I was interviewing people who had, you know, you know, Pope John XXIII's liaison with Protestant visitors at Vatican II. You know, people who had been in positions of great power. And people all across the spectrum, like Nazarene holiness, Armenian Orthodox. And the common denominator of every single one of these people is that they were fun. They were fun. And that, as I'm doing this oral history project, these interviews, they have beautiful minds. We're having this big, deep, rich intellectual conversation and lots of laughter. And as you say, lots of giggling things I realized as I'm going through this, that, you know, that is what is absolutely missing from this public expression of religion.

And I was, you know, I just feel like people would like to hear this, too. But the humor was absolutely just, you know, at the heart of that. And it's continued to be true, right? I mean, you've heard it. It's not. I don't manufacture it. I don't like we don't select for a sense of humor, but it's just almost always there. Right.

But it kind of makes you wonder if you do select for on whatever your criteria is, you know, quote wisdom. And so many of the people that you then sit down with are just awash in this sense of lightness. You know, is that association? Are they interlinked? You know, is the wiser you, sort of the lighter you become. Yeah, I think a sense of humor is a mark of wisdom.

Yeah. I mean, which comes first? I don't know. I think they feed each other. Right. And it's funny because I remember your conversation, I think it was with James Martin. And I was just smiling the whole time. And the question that popped into my mind, and for those who don't know, he's a Jesuit. And I kept asking myself, I'm like, what, because you guys, I remember spoke about laughter and joy in his faith in his tradition. And it clicked in my mind. I said, you know, I've heard a lot of conversations with Jesuits, and they all seem to be happy. And I was curious, I was like, is it that happy people

are like, if you have a happy predisposition, you're drawn to that approach to faith because it's so embodied in it? Or is it something about that path that brings it out? I don't know with the Jesuits. I think it's probably, I also do have that experience, particularly with Jesuits. In fact, there's a novel that I really love, a couple of science fiction novels by Mary Dorea Russell called The Sparrow. And, you know, the Jesuits. In fact, there's a novel that I really love, a couple of science fiction novels by Mary Dorea Russell called The Sparrow. And, you know, the Jesuits were, Ignatius of Loyola said, in charge to his brothers to find God in all things. And a lot of them went on to be explorers, right?

So Teilhard de Chardin is another great Jesuit from history who was a paleontologist who helped discover, you know, verify human evolution. And this science fiction novel is about Jesuits being the first people who go to who find other forms of life in space. and it's a beautiful beautiful novel but then I remember talking to some Jesuits and I said you know do you like that and they said it's too serious they're not having enough fun they said right right I love that

I don't know how that happens but I so I want to say something that connects this actually with the mystery piece. And that is that those of us who, who are able to lean into mystery and take delight in it and also find the joy in it are very fortunate. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm aware because I, I'm attentive to the human condition, you know, and as you know from the book, I really think that our, I think that's the piece we don't pay attention to when we talk about all the issues we talk about. Until we really focus on that, we can't actually achieve our other goals. from science now is that we're actually not hardwired for uncertainty or, or some of us are, are going to, at any given time, those people who feel vulnerable or threatened

are not going to be able to lean into mystery and, and have fun there. And yet, as you said, it's, it's the only way to create possibility, right? And it's the only way to create new realities. So for me, what that says is that there's a big place at this moment in our collective life for us to help whoever we are, wherever we are, create spaces that can be trustworthy, where fear can be calmed. And also, yeah, for those of us who can enjoy mystery and see the delight in it, to find ways to, you know, to be companions, to kind of opening up that possibility for other people. But with a lot of compassion, you know, with a lot of understanding

that this is not necessarily a natural way to be. Yeah. I mean mean i think if anything it's it's we're wired or soft why i don't like to say hardwired anymore because i think that a lot of that is being changed but we're at least softwired for for the exact opposite yeah you know we're to run from the dark cave you know from a place maybe originally of just security and survival but um which is also why you why you spent a fair amount of time also speaking with people of various Buddhist paths or traditions. And it seems like the West is running towards adaptations of Buddhism and mindfulness practices. And I wonder if in part, that's because the fundamental practices are, they give you the skills to actually spend more time in that place of mystery,

in that place of uncertainty and suffer less in a world where it seems like, you know, you can't run from the truth of living, you know living in Joseph Campbell's abyss anymore. It's just, it is. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And that fight or flight place in our brain is the most primitive part of our brain. It's still very powerful. And meditation, Richard Davidson, who did some of the studies that have given us actually our understanding of neuroplasticity, you know, how we in fact have the ability to change our brains through our behaviors and through behaviors like practices like meditation. You know, he's told me recently that there are studies now where they can actually see the amygdala shrink.

So fascinating. If you needed any more concrete demonstration, that these practices are precisely working on the parts of us that can call us to our worst in stress. And there's a lot of stress to go around right now. And it also brings up this really interesting connection. It's something that you write about, you've spoken about many times and you write about, which is the sort of the relationship between spiritual practice and I guess what you call the flesh or the body. You know, it's funny,

I was last year, I think it was, I was sitting down with Liz Gilbert and I said, you know, what's one of the things that you would tell people to be able to create at your highest level? And she said, take care of your animal. And you've had so many conversations, you know. One of that really stands out that I remember hearing you've written about also with Bessel van der Kolk, you know, really going deep into how everything we experience is wired, you know, emotional experience is wired and embodied. And there's this really intimate relationship. Yeah, just mind-blowingly intimate. You explore this on so many different levels. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so the idea of really having to explore the relationship between spirituality

and the body, the flesh, you know, the embodiment, carnality, beauty, and all of its different roles is something that seems like you, it feels like actually it's something that you've been focusing on increasingly is that is that just my perception well it's kind of interesting for you to say that because i i mean not not intentionally but it's it's highly likely because it's i would say it's something I've focused on personally. I would say aside from mystery becoming something that I just experienced to be an invitation and so rich and I can take delight in, the second greatest discovery of these years of conversation for me has been that, you know, wisdom and spirituality are embodied and that, in fact, and I think, I think that the, it's hard for me to even articulate this because I don't quite understand it, but I actually think that our, our capacity to, to inhabit, to, to welcome mystery and to inhabit life in its fullness, even spiritual life, is going to be limited if we're not fully planted in our bodies.

And that means in all of their grace, in all of their flaws. And I think I grew up and for a long time into adulthood was very cerebral about these things or it's all about ideas ideas and questions and for me growth has been

in getting out of my head and into my body and then learning all the ways that these things in fact have always been connected is just such a revelation yeah

well I mean I have to imagine also that your upbringing steeped in sort of, you know, with your grandfather and Southern Baptist culture was sort of, you know, it was almost like there's a deliberate split where you just don't go to that place. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so there's some significant rewiring that has to happen there. Yeah. But I'm attentive in how at the other end of our cultural spectrum,

the Enlightenment did this to us as well. You know, I think, therefore I am. I mean, that is so incomplete. It's so incomplete. So true. Yeah.

You also, you talk about, and this is funny, I was brought up, I live AJ Jacobs line, I'm Jewish the way Olive Garden is Italian, so that's kind of how I was brought up.

And you use it, you offer this phrase, Yiddish phrase, nefesh. And really it's, I guess, based around the idea that the soul actually needs the body to emerge, that it doesn't exist independently. And am I getting that right? Yeah, and I think it's a kind of, again, it's something that's going to be hard to put precise words around. But yes, the soul is emergent. Not this idea that certainly I grew up with, that the soul is like someplace in you or it's out there somewhere, but it's a thing. And the idea of nefesh is that the soul is emergent and it's emergent through the life you live. And it's emergent through your body moving through the world. It's emergent through the life you live and it's emergent through your body moving through the world it's emergent through the relationships you have with other human beings

so you know it is dependent on physicality on in on many levels and i just that seems right to me yeah i love that um in the past life i taught yoga also. And it was stunning how often emotion would be released through physical movement through just slow breathing and deliberate physical movement and intention. And just the tears would pour every single class. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. And of course, I've experienced that as a student and a practitioner as well. I want to be respectful of our time. So another interesting topic and maybe a place where you're at your most vulnerable

in this book and your current work is conversation around love. You share a lot about your personal life and your marriage. And if I might, I'm just going to read a few sentences from the chapter where you write, this is where your marriage was wrapping up. You write, when my marriage ended, I walked into a parallel universe that had been there all along. I became one of the modern multitudes of

walking wounded in the wreckage of long-term love. Strangest of all, on this planet, is the way we continue to idealize romantic love and crave it for completion, to follow those love songs and those movies. It seems like, you know, we are so much of our waking hours is governed in some way by this mad quest of what you call idealized romantic love. Yeah, and there are so many pitfalls and problems to that.

And on top of that, there's the larger tragedy that love, you know, like the Beatles said, is actually what can save us. But I don't, I mean, I think it's a word, it's a practice that we have yet just barely begun to excavate all the aspects of love. And, you know, what love could mean, not just between two people. You know, I think sometimes you see that worked out in a long relationship. But from person to person in common life, and, you know, what I started to think about as I started to realize, you know, I started to question this idea that I don't have love in my life. You know, I talk about, you know, one day I realized that's just not true. I have so many kinds of love in my life. I don't have that one particular kind of love at this moment in time. But what I have is so much. And for us to learn to appreciate and I think cultivate these other kinds of love, these other forms of love and, you know, this terrible thing we do

that if we don't have this one thing, and you know, because it is, because love is always where the condition, human condition is in, you know, starkest relief. That love also is always very complex, right? That love, even when you have it, is very rarely that romantic peak thing. So I guess I just, I long for us to be more realistic about this, and it's what I'm trying to do, which means actually being able to take a different kind of delight, right? It's not all kind of eat your spinach. Yeah. And it's sort of, you know, it ties into the idea of, I guess, it's been written about differently and, you know, for, well, I guess a really long time, you know, the idea of four different types of love, you know, and passionate love or romantic love, just being

one of four that each have its own thing. There's an interesting thing, sort of exploration, where you take it to a place also of sort of framing, zooming the lens out and getting a bit meta and framing love as, I guess you could call it a civic force. Yeah. I'd like for us to try that. I'd like for us to dare that. And some of the most powerful conversations I've had in these, this last year or two, where there's such, you know, where we are, where there's just a lot to despair about in terms of our racial well-being. You know, John Powell, who I talk about in the book, who's somebody who knows those front lines and is a legal scholar. But, you know, he says he wants to reframe the question of race into the question of belonging, you know, and if we if we could internalize the reality that we are connected and, you know, we may be in a bad relationship, but we are in relationship. And if we could let some of our and say they changed the world, they all did this. King's vision was the beloved community.

And he set something in motion. And I think it's this beloved community part that we actually have to pick up now. That didn't happen. We got some changes in structures and laws. I mean, there's some fundamental things changed, but this relationship, this internalizing our relationship and caring for each other and letting that care shape our life together, including the practical structures, that's the piece that is unfinished. I've seen, you know, there's a bit of a mass departure from organized religion, organized faith, and also many of the sort of, you know, the, quote, bastions of society or culture that

would have provided that sense of enduring belonging. It doesn't seem like those things are providing it on the level that they used to, which makes me wonder whether, you know, where, if we have to have that, where are we going to find that now? Yeah, it's absolutely true that the places we used to look for that are not providinging, of claiming identity with a group, which is chosen, you know, that's happening all over the place. It's happening online. It's happening offline. It's happening in places like CrossFit.

It's happening in yoga studios, right? It's often actually, you know, to kind of connect this with the conversation we were having a minute ago, it's happening. A lot of it's happening in conjunction as we like rediscover our wholeness, which is rediscovering our bodies. I think the question for me is I'm a big kind of I want to connect dots, right? So and I think this is also behind your question. It's right now it's just very dispersed. And I think people find courage and they find meaning and they find community. They find strength.

I'm wanting us to make sure that we kind of pool our efforts, right? That there's cross-pollination. That we know that it's not just our group over here that is committing to connect in our life with outer life, but that we can draw courage in wider and wider circles. And that's what I don't know. I actually have a lot of hope and trust that that can happen, but I don't quite know how that's going to happen right now. Yeah, I love that. And that kind of brings us full circle also towards the end of Becoming Wise, speaking on the topic of hope you offer. My mind inclines now more than ever toward hope. And it really, through our conversation, it feels that way.

I mean, it feels like there's a sense of hope that radiates from you and that there is, as much as there is a lot of, you know, we hear in the mainstream news, a lot of doom and gloom, that there's a lot of wonder and a lot of possibility and hope that is simultaneously unfolding, that maybe it's time to shine more light on. Yeah, and I think hope is something that we can acquire. And for me, you know, it's a hard one, but hope is also a choice we can make. And, you know, the opposite choice, which is to be resigned and cynical, is to me just too easy and lazy. We can choose, you know, hope for me is reality-based. I don't use the word language of optimism. It's not wishful thinking. It's deciding I'm going to live by this vision and I'm going to point at it when I see it.

I'm going to embody it when I can. This is what I'm going to move towards and, you know, hopefully be infectious in that, encouraging others to move towards. So it's not something you have to have given to you, but it is something you have to claim. I like that. I like it because it, you know, it reeks of agency. Right. Exactly. That's a word we like. Yeah, I love it. Right. Exactly. That's a word we like. Maybe we should just call it agency.

Either way. My word is, I think it's funny because I've heard the word agency thrown around a lot lately. Yeah, I have too. It was kind of top of mind. But I think it's not all that an accessible word for most people. So at least I think I get what people mean when they're saying it. Choice is probably more your word intention. You have to choose it.

So coming full circle, the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I were to offer that phrase to you, to live a good life, what comes up? Oh, this is like the question I ask at the end now about what you think about what it means to be human. And I realize it's a very hard question. Oh, my answer to that has been so evolutionary. You know, I think at this point, yes, I am full of a kind of soaring hope that I choose. And I love the big juicy questions that are out there.

But somehow I understand that my ability to live by those things and to keep them renewed is also about me being really close to the ground. You know, like really loving my children and doing my yoga and, you know, enjoying the place I come from, being good to myself, being good to the people around me, that it's somehow about joining that, you know, what is close with what is aspirational and understanding that you, you know, that those two feed each other. You don't get one without the other. So it's, you know, it's about, I think so much these last few years about this work of joining inner life with outer life. That's kind of my understanding of spirituality that I aspire to and that I think is interesting to me. And that's about, you know, it's about what it means to be human and and and delving

into that with the raw materials of my life and it's about this realization that you know who we are to each other you know who i am to the people around me who i let them and encourage them to be to me is also tied to that personal aspiration it's some of the ways I'm thinking about a good life these days. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. This was challenging in a really good way. Hey, thanks so much for listening.

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