December 2011
63 posts
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Sacred Choral Music in Worship Has a Power All Its...
by Michael McGlynn, guest contributor
Participants in the Royal School of Church Music Cathedral Course (RSCM) perform in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin. The RSCM promotes singing for people of ages by training choirs to sing church services to a high musical standard in cathedrals and churches throughout the United Kingdom. (photo: Richard Bloomfield/Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0)
I was brought up as...
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Ten Most Popular Blog Posts of 2011
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
This year’s list of the top 10 most visited blog posts is dominated by two ideas: meditation and major news events. Half of this list, including the clear winner of Arthur Zajonc’s bell meditation, have something to do with the practice of mindfulness, of improving one’s interior life.
This list is also a time capsule, reminding us of some of...
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Anonymous asked: The bible says that white hair is found among those who live a virtuous life. So being, at the time of his death, Osama bin Laden had lived a more virtuous life than Krista Tippet. Not to hard to believe.
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“We think of love as things like oxytocin, which bind us to other people. But in...”
– —Kirsten Lindsmith, from “Navigating Love and Autism”
The college student’s relationship with Jack Robison, who also has Asperger’s syndrome, is the subject of Amy Harmon’s fascinating New York Times feature. The piece reveals how Lindsmith and Robison’s love...
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Making Room for Both Traditions of Christmas and...
by Meg Smith, guest contributor
Although I was born on Christmas, I feel like I’m slightly part Hanukkah now. Each year since I remarried — an event which brought two Jewish stepchildren into my life — I have anticipated the Festival of Lights with almost as much excitement as my hybrid celebration of the Winter Solstice/Yule and Christmas.
My stepchildren are actually half-Hanukkah and...
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“Bending to a common purpose is more important than arising from a common place....”
– —David Treuer, from the Ojibwe author’s op-ed in The New York Times on ”blood quantum laws” and how they have been used historically to cast out members without pure tribal bloodlines.
Hear him talk at length with Krista Tippett about how his Ojibwe language is the only vehicle...
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A Polish Grandmother's Christmas Story
by Paul Clement Czaja, guest contributor
A Christmas scene from Syria. (Charles Roffey/Flickr, cc by-nc-sa 2.0)
As a Polish family, the real celebration of Christ’s birth for us took place on Christmas Eve with the singing of carols before sharing together a festive dinner. And then, finally, when the night outside was deep and decorated with a billion stars, all the family would sit around the...
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Business Tips on Living Well
by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
The following three points from the Harvard Business Review could just as well be applied as an operating motto for one’s personal life and not just for business networking, non?
Revise your conference calendar.
Talk to the loners.
Find diversity within.
Photo by Ed Yourdon/Flickr, cc by-sa 2.0
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The Politics of Religion and Regionalism on the...
by Michael Sohn, guest contributor
Canada’s Supreme Court Justices pose for a photo at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on November 14, 2011: (bottom row, l-r) Morris Fish, Louis LeBel, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Marie Deschamps, Rosalie Abella; (top row, l-r) Michael Moldaver, Marshall Rothstein, Thomas Cromwell and Andromache Karakatsanis. (photo: Blair Gable/Reuters)
Last...
Anonymous asked: na kakoy stranice mojno citat knigi Tolle?
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“Philosophy has nothing to say about death. Only poetry. I wish I had memorized...”
– — Richard Rorty, the secular humanist philosopher as quoted in The Huffington Post
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
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“The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in...”
– —Václav Havel, from the Czechoslovakian president’s address to the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress on February 21, 1990.
~reblogged by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
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Church Bells in Tochimilco, Mexico: An Old Feud...
by Christoph Rosenmüller
©Javier del Rio/Flickr
I spent a few weeks last summer in the Mexican town Tochimilco, a municipalidad in the state of Puebla. Set to a breathtaking scene with the majestic Popocatepetl Volcano in the backdrop, this charming town boasts a former Franciscan monastery built in the sixteenth century.
In this quaint town, which is about a four-hour bus ride from the...
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“When an atheist dies it is wrong to wonder what is happening to them now that...”
– —Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, from his HuffPo piece, “When an Atheist Dies: Religious Reflections on Christopher Hitchens’ Death”
~Trent Gilliss, senior editor
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Anonymous asked: how can I listen to On Being on my Kindle Fire??
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Cubans Honor Babalú-Ayé, The Father of the World
by Nancy Rosenbaum, producer
A woman sits next to an icon of Babalú-Ayé at the shrine of Saint Lazarus in El Rincon outside of Havana, Cuba. (photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Each year on December 16–17, thousands of Cubans of different religious persuasions make their way to Saint Lazarus’ shrine on the the outskirts of Havana to pray for health and blessings. Some go to honor the orisha...
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“Phyllis Trible has taught us that the Hebrew word for ‘mercy’ is the...”
– —Walter Brueggemann
Our interview with the famous theologian of the “prophetic imagination” will be released the weekend before Christmas. In the meantime, check out the recording of our live video stream with him.
About the image: “Womb-like mother love” by Or...
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Celebrating the Festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe...
by Nancy Rosenbaum, producer
A boy wears a tunic featuring the Virgin of Guadalupe during services in Mexico. (photo: Daniel Cristán/Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0)
This Monday millions of Catholics celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Marian patron of Mexico. It’s not just Mexicans who revere the tawny-skinned Virgin who first appeared in 1531 to an indigenous Aztec peasant and...
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“Truth has to be given in riddles. People can’t take truth if it comes charging...”
– —Chaim Potok, from The Gift of Asher Lev
Thanks for reminding me of this mind-enlivening piece of art.
~reblogged by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
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Judy Atkinson: A Twitterscript
by Anne Breckbill, associate web developer
On August 10, 2010, Krista Tippett interviewed Australian Judy Atkinson, an expert in violence, trauma/healing, and aboriginal people. The following is the complete Twitterscript from that interview.
Krista is starting to interview Australian Judy Atkinson, an expert in violence, trauma and healing, and aboriginals.
Judy Atkinson talks about her...
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“Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the...”
– —Franz Kafka, from a letter to Oskar Pollak dated January 27, 1904.
Walter Brueggemann loosely cited this passage from Kafka in our interview being released this week and so, while fact-checking the script, we thought we’d verify for attribution. And, we wanted to read what he originally...
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The Wrappings of Love in Enveloping Arms: An...
by Pádraig Ó Tuama, guest contributor
There’s an internet site called The Nicest Place on the Internet that I came across the other day. I’m not sure how I saw it — a link from a tweet, or something somebody wrote.
When you open the site, an acoustic version of “I Have Never Loved Someone” by My Brightest Diamond begins playing. While it’s playing, short videos of people hugging a camera are...
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Christmas Is a Time for Artistic Expression and...
by Judith Dupré, guest contributor
Photo by Shandi-lee (Flickr, cc by-nc 2.0)
How many times have you heard someone say — I can’t draw, I can’t sing, I can’t dance — with the case-closed authority of Solomon? Probably dozens of times, more if you yourself happen to be an artist blessed with the painting, flamenco, or woodworking gene. But have you ever heard anyone sheepishly confess, as they...
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“Reuben found that, on average, both men and women lied about their performance....”
– —Rebecca Knight of the Financial Times “Women at the Top” blog highlights research by Columbia Business School professor Ernesto Reuben, who finds that men “honestly believe their performance is 30 percent better than it really is.” This is research that should make all men... 