On Being with Krista Tippett

We humans have this drive to erect barriers between ourselves and others, Luis Alberto Urrea says, and yet this makes us a little crazy. He is an exuberant, wise, and refreshing companion into the deep meaning and the problem of borders — what they are really about, what we do with them, and what they do to us.  The Mexican-American border was as close and personal to him as it could be when he wa...

Through the ruptures of the past year and more, we’ve been given so much to learn, and callings to live differently. But how to do that, and where to begin? Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother's Hands , and his original insights into racialized trauma in all kinds of bodies, have offered new ways forward for us all. So we said yes when Resmaa proposed that he join On Being together with Robin Di...

Through the ruptures of the past year and more, we’ve been given so much to learn, and callings to live differently. But how to do that, and where to begin? Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother's Hands , and his original insights into racialized trauma in all kinds of bodies, have offered new ways forward for us all. So we said yes when Resmaa proposed that he join On Being together with Robin Di...

We are digging into the archives to celebrate some of the conversations listeners have loved the most and that have shaped this project. Kevin Kling is part funny guy, part poet and playwright, part wise man — homegrown Minnesota meets Dante and Shakespeare. He was also born with one disabled arm, and a midlife motorcycle accident paralyzed the other. Then again, being so-called able-bodied, Kevin...

As we reflect back on 2020 and look ahead, how do we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged even in the face of loss? Sharon Salzberg is one of the most esteemed meditation teachers in the world. She speaks with Krista about how to care for the world while also learning kindness towards ourselves. Sharon Salzb...

As we reflect back on 2020 and look ahead, how do we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged even in the face of loss? Sharon Salzberg is one of the most esteemed meditation teachers in the world. She speaks with Krista about how to care for the world while also learning kindness towards ourselves. Sharon Salzb...

“I’m entering into this next phase… with a great deal of curiosity and perhaps tenderness, wanting to hold each other tight, because I think that there are ramifications of last year that have yet to be felt.” Rev. Jen Bailey is a wise young pastor and social innovator, and a “friend of a different generation” of Krista. This conversation is a loving adventure in cross-generational mapmaking and c...

“I’m entering into this next phase… with a great deal of curiosity and perhaps tenderness, wanting to hold each other tight, because I think that there are ramifications of last year that have yet to be felt.” Rev. Jen Bailey is a wise young pastor and social innovator, and a “friend of a different generation” of Krista. This conversation is a loving adventure in cross-generational mapmaking and c...

Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: We Can Do Hard Things . Meanwhile her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new tv show - Abby’s Places on ESPN+. Krista spoke with them before they were quite so much in the public eye t...

Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed has been a sensation of 2020 and beyond, and now she’s launched a new podcast titled with words of hers that have become a cultural force: We Can Do Hard Things . Meanwhile her wife, the soccer icon Abby Wambach, has her own bestselling books and is hosting a new tv show - Abby’s Places on ESPN+. Krista spoke with them before they were quite so much in the public eye t...

If we didn’t have vast civilizational challenges upon us, we might be living in a constant state of wonder at what science in this century is learning and showing us about the cosmos and about ourselves — the new questions it’s giving us to live. We are the generation of our species to map the genome, to detect black holes colliding, to hear gravitational waves. The physicist Brian Greene is one o...

If we didn’t have vast civilizational challenges upon us, we might be living in a constant state of wonder at what science in this century is learning and showing us about the cosmos and about ourselves — the new questions it’s giving us to live. We are the generation of our species to map the genome, to detect black holes colliding, to hear gravitational waves. The physicist Brian Greene is one o...

The psychotherapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, her books, and her podcast, Where Should We Begin? Episode after episode lays bare the theater of relationship, which is also the drama of being human. Her insights speak to the flip side of social isolation — the intense experience many have now had of togetherness. And her deep understand...

The psychotherapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, her books, and her podcast, Where Should We Begin? Episode after episode lays bare the theater of relationship, which is also the drama of being human. Her insights speak to the flip side of social isolation — the intense experience many have now had of togetherness. And her deep understand...

Jason Reynolds is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole. He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us. Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to Stamped from the Beginning . In his person, Jason Reynolds both embod...

Jason Reynolds is the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole. He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us. Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to Stamped from the Beginning . In his person, Jason Reynolds both embod...

A new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet has been released in a world in which his voice and vision feel as resonant as ever before. In ten letters to a young person in 1903, Rilke touched on the enduring dramas of creating our lives — prophetic musings about solitude and relationship, humanity and the natural world, even gender and human wholeness. And what a joy it is to...

Alex Elle complicates the idea of self-care, opening it up as community-care, as a way towards generational healing. And she’s revivifying the meaning of meeting one’s “inner child” for a new generation. Our colleague Lily Percy says she could not have survived the physical isolation of the pandemic without Alex’s writing, teaching, and Instagram presence. So Krista hands over the mic to Lily for...

Alex Elle complicates the idea of self-care, opening it up as community-care, as a way towards generational healing. And she’s revivifying the meaning of meeting one’s “inner child” for a new generation. Our colleague Lily Percy says she could not have survived the physical isolation of the pandemic without Alex’s writing, teaching, and Instagram presence. So Krista hands over the mic to Lily for...

Elemental human capacities like friendship and love, teaching and learning, have tremendous, constant, practical force. We don’t think of these in terms of what has given our species the grit to endure through hard times and even evolve in the long run. They’re lived social intelligence, part of the everyday, and so can be hard to see as serious amidst the high tumult of our age. But these kinds o...

Elemental human capacities like friendship and love, teaching and learning, have tremendous, constant, practical force. We don’t think of these in terms of what has given our species the grit to endure through hard times and even evolve in the long run. They’re lived social intelligence, part of the everyday, and so can be hard to see as serious amidst the high tumult of our age. But these kinds o...

There’s dark matter in the cosmos, and inside us, and hidden beneath our feet. Robert Macfarlane is an explorer and linguist of landscape and his book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey , is an odyssey that’s full of surprises — from caves and catacombs under land, under cities, and under forests to the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens,” he writes, “humans have been seeking...

There’s dark matter in the cosmos, and inside us, and hidden beneath our feet. Robert Macfarlane is an explorer and linguist of landscape and his book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey , is an odyssey that’s full of surprises — from caves and catacombs under land, under cities, and under forests to the meltwater of Greenland. “Since before we were Homo sapiens,” he writes, “humans have been seeking...

The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis , a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat...

The pandemic memoirs began almost immediately, and now comes another kind of offering — a searching look at the meaning of the racial catharsis to which the pandemic in some sense gave birth and voice and life. Tracy K. Smith co-edited the stunning book, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis , a collection of 40 pieces that span an array of BIPOC voices from Edwidge Danticat...