Becoming Wise

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the pastor and founder of the Denver-based church the House for All Sinners and Saints. Her spiritual memoir is “Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Nadia Bolz-Weber — Seeing the Underside and Seeing God: Tattoos, Tradition, and Grace.” Find more at onbeing.org.

For over a decade, the French-American anthropologist Scott Atran has been listening to the hopes and dreams of young people from Indonesia to Egypt. He explores the human dynamics of what we analyze as “breeding grounds for terrorism” — why some young people become susceptible to them and others, in the same circumstances, do not. His work sheds helpful light on the question on so many of our minds as we watch horrific news of the day: How could this happen — and how could we possibly help transform it?

Scott Atran is director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, visiting professor at the University of Michigan, senior fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University and research professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He’s the author of “Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood and the (Un)Making of Terrorists.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Scott Atran — Hopes and Dreams in a World of Fear.” Find more at onbeing.org.

If journalism is a primary way we tell the story of ourselves and our time, Michel Martin is a person helping us tell that story — and take part in it — more completely. Her daily NPR program “Tell Me More” was often labeled as “diversity” or “minority” programming. But in fact, she and her journalism are about a more generous and realistic sweep of who we are now — and how we’re creating our life together anew. At the Chautauqua Institution, we mine her wisdom on the emerging fabric of human identity. The third in a four-part series, “The American Consciousness.”

Michel Martin is a journalist with NPR. She previously reported for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC’s “Nightline.” She was the creator and host of the NPR program Tell Me More, which ran from 2007-2014. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Michel Martin — The Fabric of Our Identity.” Find more at onbeing.org.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet is the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. He is the author of many books, including “Ethics for a New Millennium.” Jonathan Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. He is the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University and the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University. He has also been appointed as Professor of Law, Ethics and the Bible at King’s College London. He is the author of several books, including The “Dignity of Difference.” Seyyed Hossein Nasr is University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He’s a prominent philosopher and scholar of Islam who has written many books, including “The Heart of Islam” and “Man and Nature.” Katharine Jefferts Schori is the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She holds a doctorate in oceanography. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Jonathan Sacks, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr — Pursuing Happiness.” Find more at onbeing.org.

The XIV Dalai Lama seems to many to embody happiness — happiness against the odds, a virtue that is acquired and practiced. Before a live audience in Atlanta, Georgia, Krista had a rare opportunity to mull over the meaning of happiness in contemporary life with him and three global spiritual leaders: a Muslim scholar, a chief rabbi, and a presiding bishop. An invigorating and unpredictable discussion exploring the themes of suffering, beauty, and the nature of the body.

After September 11, 2001, Richard Rodriguez traveled to the Middle East to explore his kinship, as a Roman Catholic, with the men who stepped onto airplanes and turned them into weapons of terror. What he learned illuminates some of the deepest paradox and promise of the world we inhabit. He is an especially intriguing conversation partner for right now — a life and mind straddling left and right, religious and secular, immigrant and intellectual. At the Chautauqua Institution, we mine his wisdom on the emerging fabric of human identity. The second in a four-part series, “The American Consciousness.”

Richard Rodriguez is a journalist and essayist. He won a Peabody Award for his original commentary on The NewsHour and received the National Humanities Medal in 1993. His books include “Hunger Of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez,” “Brown: The Last Discovery Of America,” and “Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Richard Rodriguez — The Fabric of Our Identity.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Imani Perry is a scholar of law, culture, race — and hip hop. She acknowledges wise voices who say that we will never get to the promised land of racial equality. She writes, “That may very well be true, but it is also true that extraordinary things have happened and keep happening in our history. The question is, how do we prepare for and precipitate them?” We took her up on this emboldening question at the Chautauqua Institution, on the cusp of yet a new collective reckoning with the racial fabric of American life. The first in a four-part series, “The American Consciousness.”