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“Wisdom is not just about knowledge. Wisdom adds to knowledge with discernment, with understanding, with a moral sense of what’s right and wrong.”
We live in a time of overflowing and interweaving crises. A global pandemic exacerbates a mental health crisis caused social media technology. The upheaval of American electoral politics caused by an erosion (or breakdown?) of social and relational trust. The rise of nationalism, the proliferation of war, and longing for justice in the realms of gender and race.
Underneath it all appears to be a crisis of knowledge and its convergence around skepticism of science, a culture of suspicion, and confusion about basic factual information, let alone right and wrong.
We need wisdom. Badly. But in times of crisis and chaos, where are we to turn for wisdom?
In this episode Mark Labberton is joined by longtime friend Francis Collins, physician, researcher, and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Known for his leadership in mapping the human genome, his public service at the NIH spanned three presidencies and culminated with overseeing the national response to Covid-19 pandemic.
The author of many books, including his bestselling The Language of God, Collins’s new book is *The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust,* a reflection on the crisis of truth, science, faith, and trust, and how the exhausted middle might chart a path toward a better future.
About Francis Collins
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, is the former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As the longest serving director of NIH—spanning twelve years and three presidencies—he oversaw the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, from basic to clinical research.
Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993 to 2008.
Collins's research laboratory has discovered a number of important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease, a familial endocrine cancer syndrome, and most recently, genes for type 2 diabetes, and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare condition that causes premature aging.
Collins received a BS in chemistry from the University of Virginia, a PhD in physical chemistry from Yale University, and an MD with honours from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to the NIH in 1993, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2007 and the National Medal of Science in 2009.
Show Notes
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
Is perfection possible? And if so, is it worth the cost to your mental and spiritual health?
The quest for perfection haunts many people: students, athletes, employees, parents—and the children of those parents!
While this quest is often framed as the pursuit of excellence, virtue, and success, perfectionism often results in various maladaptive behaviours—such as procrastination, people-pleasing, relational stress, and mental illnesses, including anxiety and depression disorders.
In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes Dr. Kenneth Wang, Professor of Psychology at Fuller School of Psychology, to talk about the psychological and spiritual dynamics of perfectionism.
Together, they explore the connections between perfectionism and a range of personal and mental health issues, such as depression, achievement, religiosity, racial identity, and self-esteem. They reflect on the cultural obsession with perfection; the severe psychological and social burdens of trying to be perfect; the toxicity of comparison to others; the meaning of being “good enough”; and the spiritual impact of encouraging perfection in education, career, relationships, and personal life.
About Kenneth Wang
Kenneth Wang is Professor of Psychology at Fuller School of Psychology. He’s an experienced therapist, and has conducted extensive research that spans the psychology of religion, to mindful meditation, to coping with trauma, mental health and race, moral character and virtue formation, diversity, and cross-cultural adjustment. His expertise is in the psychological study of perfectionism in familial, educational, religious contexts—looking at the phenomenon across a variety of cultures. Visit Dr. Kenneth Wang’s website to take an online assessment for perfectionism and consider guidance and coaching from Dr. Wang.
Show Notes
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
The news media offers a steady drip of audacity, nerve, and offence—something for each end of the political spectrum and every corner of the public square.
But when we integrate audacity with a humble confidence, it can lead to powerful acts of love and justice.
The gospel makes an audacious claim about God’s grace. It makes an audacious demand that we love our neighbours in humility. And that combination of audacity and humility keeps us seeking to engage in real conversations about ultimate things—despite our differences, despite resentments, despite all the reasons to give up on building something together.
In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton reflects on the meaning of audacity, humility, and courage when the church engages in public life.
About Conversing Shorts
“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”
About Mark Labberton
Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.
Show Notes
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
How should we approach disagreements when our deepest convictions and commitments are challenged or questioned? A healthy society is built around the ability to navigate these kinds of disagreements with responsibility and respect, but in our increasingly polarized society, it’s becoming harder and harder to cultivate the habits, skills, and virtues that can keep us united amid our vehement disagreements.
In this episode Mark welcomes legal scholar and law professor John Inazu to discuss how to approach disagreement with wisdom, care, and a commitment to the well-being of the other. John is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. He speaks and writes frequently about pluralism, assembly, free speech, and religious freedom. His latest book is Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.
Together Mark and John discuss the role of fear management when approaching difficult conversations; how to appreciate the complexity and diversity of perspectives in others; the role of empathy in communication; how to learn to disagree constructively in different life contexts from work to home to politics; how authority, power dynamics, and social roles factor in productive disagreements; the light and dark sides of civility; and how to navigate and negotiate our disagreements with compassion and love.
About John Inazu
John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches criminal law, law and religion, and various First Amendment courses. He writes and speaks frequently about pluralism, assembly, free speech, religious freedom, and other issues. John has written three books—including Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect (Zondervan, 2024) and Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly (Yale University Press, 2012)—and has published opinion pieces in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, USA Today, Newsweek, and CNN. He is also the founder of the Carver Project and the Legal Vocation Fellowship and is a senior fellow with Interfaith America.
Show Notes
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment magazine and Fuller Seminary.
“The mystery has great meaning.”
Joy and sorrow don’t have to be dissonant opposites, author Amy Low suggests. There can be harmony in the space between triumph and tragedy. In her recent memoir, *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room,* she recounts her battle with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer following the end of her marriage.
Her gracious, generous wisdom is beautifully expressed on her book’s back cover: “Through the swirl of prolonged trauma and unbearable grief, a vantage point emerged—a window that showed her the way to relish life and be kinder to herself and others while living through the inevitable loss and heartbreak that crosses everyone’s paths.”
In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes Amy for a conversation about the lessons she’s learned from living with cancer, including: how to come to terms with our own deaths; dealing with divorce and a traumatic end of a relationship; how to walk the path of forgiveness and humility; the immense complexity and beauty of humanity; how to explore the meaning of mystery without fear; the role of friendship and community in dealing with cancer; and the hope of imagining heaven.
About Amy Low
Amy Low, author of *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room,* has been a storyteller all her life. She grew up in and continues to live life through parables and metaphors. She sees her life as an invitation to discovering the new every day and even records some of these discoveries in her Substack, Postcards from the Mountain. As the managing director for fellowships and non-profit journalism at the Emerson Collective, she directs efforts to empower individuals and newsrooms to strengthen our shared conversation in the public square. Most important, Amy is mom to Connor and Lucy. Her proudest achievement is raising a son and daughter who are unafraid, grateful, and curious, whether in class, at home, on stage, or especially in the band.
Get your copy of *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room.*
Follow Amy’s story through her Substack, Postcards from the Mountain.
Being in the last room of one’s life
The profundity and sacredness of discussing one’s “last room”—”the most human place of all”
Bravery, imagination, and generosity
Amy Low’s cancer diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic colon cancer at 48 years old
Discovering metastases
Living in the last room: an unusual place to inhabit in mid-life
There are different ways to live in the last room.
St. Paul’s “last room” as described in the Letter to the Philippians
Lament and levity
Grief and being with people in their last rooms
Being fully alive in the midst of facing one’s death
“I can say with confidence for me that divorce was far harder than cancer. When I had to grapple with the gravity of my disease and the diagnosis and what I was going to face … I had come through a space of the woods that I can say was far more ominous, far harder, far more heartbreaking.”
Divorce
Forgiveness and receiving care from her ex-husband
How to create a new story in the wake of tragedy and trauma
Forgiveness as “releasing people from the negative consequences of their behavior”
“Giving yourself permission to be truly loved, and to be truly released from shame.”
Fear
Amy’s honest, artful, candid expression of her story
“Metaphors are places that hold ambiguity.”
Finding peace with ambiguity and mystery
Joy and purpose
“The worst thing anyone ever said to me was, you know, this whole thing is like so random. … And I thought, ‘No. No. The minute you call this random, the minute this doesn’t have any meaning.”
“The mystery has great meaning.”
Grappling with the tension of purpose and pain
How specific friends stood by Amy in approaching the experience of her cancer diagnosis
“Don’t just do something. Stand there.”
The challenge of receiving without giving much back—and reframing the meaning of “giving back”
The hope of imagining heaven
Heaven on earth as parachuting hot dogs
“The great hope is that we all wake up and we laugh at the good stuff and be brave at the hard stuff.”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
“A certain degree of faith in Providence and a certain degree of confidence in America … May that combination not be overwhelmed by some disaster.” (New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, offering a blessing for election season)
Contemporary political debate and commentary operates from deeply moral sources. People tend to vote their conscience. Our values and ideals, our sense of right and wrong, and our beliefs about what contributes or detracts from the common good often inform our politics.
And across the political spectrum, Americans of all stripes exercise their citizenship and public engagement through a religious faith that grounds it all. So, what better space to explore this conjunction of faith, morality, and political life than The New York Times Opinion section?
Today on the show, Ross Douthat joins Mark Labberton to discuss how his faith and theological commitments ground his moral and political perspectives. Douthat joined The New York Times as an Opinion columnist in 2009, and regularly appears on the weekly Opinion podcast, “Matter of Opinion.” He’s also a film critic for National Review and was previously senior editor at The Atlantic.
In this episode, they discuss the spiritual and political background of Douthat’s youth and how Roman Catholic Christianity grounded his religious and political views; the challenges for how the Catholic Church and its moral teachings can adapt to contemporary culture; how faith and morality can speak to our dynamic political moment during the 2024 election season; and finally Ross’s hope and faith in divine providence met with confidence in America’s resilience and capacity for good.
About Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Opinion columnist in 2009, and regularly appears on the weekly Opinion podcast, “Matter of Opinion.” He’s also a film critic for National Review. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is the author of several books, including The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery (2021), The Decadent Society (2020), To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (2018), Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012); Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (2005), and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (2008). His newest book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, will be published in early 2025.
Show Notes
Ross Douthat’s spiritual background as Episcopalian, Pentecostal-Evangelical, and eventually Roman Catholic
Our “spiritually haunted environment”
How Catholicism has changed from Pope John Paul II to Pope Francis
Adapting moral teachings to contemporary challenges
“Many, many of the problems in our culture and the reasons for people's unhappiness are related to issues of sex and relationships.”
“Jesus says incredibly stringent and strenuous things in the Gospels about sex.”
“I think if the church stops having some sort of countercultural message on those issues, then it won't actually be speaking to the big challenges and derangements of our time.”
“All of the developed world is heading over this demographic cliff…”
People aren’t getting married anymore. They aren’t forming relationships anymore.”
Pope Francis, pastoral sensitivity, and making moral concessions to contemporary culture
Pope Francis squelching the Latin mass
Commenting on the dynamics and craziness of our political moment
“Over the course of my career, I have tried to spend a lot of time with the idea that Catholicism in particular, and I think Christianity in general, should stand a little bit outside of partisan categories.”
How the Republican Party can address the needs of the working class
Ross Douthat’s views during the Trump Era
Providence and appealing to God’s control
"Man proposes, and God disposes.”
“The world has grown weirder in general, in the last decade, than it was when I was in my twenties.”
Providence and freedom
Ross’s thesis in The Decadent Society: “The Western world and really the whole planet was sort of stuck stagnant. We'd achieved this incredible level of wealth and technological power, we'd filled the earth and subdued it to some degree, but we were suffering from uncertainty, malaise, and ennui because we didn't know what to do next.”
Space travel and Elon Musk
Looking for help from some other power: God, Aliens, or A.I.
The unique perspective Ross Douthat brings to The New York Times
“As the world has grown weirder, I've felt a little more comfortable being weird myself, and that so far hasn't gotten me fired.”
“You know, not to brag, but yeah, I'm probably the weirdest columnist at a major American newspaper.”
Offering a blessing for the nation’s experience between now and election day
“Life in the United States is an underrated good. Americans have become very pessimistic, very unhappy with each other, sometimes unhappy with themselves … And I think actually, beneath that difficult surface, America has a lot of real strengths and real resilience and American culture is better positioned, I think, than a lot of cultures around the world to navigate the next 50 to 100 years of human history. So I think that should give people some confidence.”
“A certain degree of faith in Providence and a certain degree of confidence in America.”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
Sacred spaces are not secret spaces. The church enacts a gospel reality that is inherently universal and transparent in the world. And what better metaphor than building a church sanctuary made of glass to communicate the invitation of the gospel to the world?
In this Conversing Short, Mark Labberton reflects on the implications of this architectural decision. He also considers the opportunities for community conversation; the invitation to communion, dialogue, and unity; and a fearless, gospel-centered transparency between the church and the world.
About Conversing Shorts
“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”
About Mark Labberton
Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.
Show Notes
Preaching in a glass-walled sanctuary at First Presbyterian Berkeley, CA
“It’s one cross, in the world and for the church… but it’s for everyone.”
The “live theater” of preaching in a glass-walled sanctuary
We live in a church and world of both stillness and movement—which is embodied in Jesus’s ministry
“I wanted to feel like what I was doing in the sanctuary would land as much with realistic speech and tone and assumption in the streets of Berkeley as it would land inside the sanctuary.”
“It was a good way to hold my feet to the fire. Would I say this if I was standing exposed as it were on the street outside? Or would I only say this inside the closed walls of, yes, a clear glass wall church? So it became a metaphor—a reality—a vivid visual play that was part of every Sunday.”
Utter transparency of glass over stone walls
In a sacred space there is a transparency.
“The same kind of tyranny against faith exists inside us, but also around us. And now we're together going to share in the celebration of the Lord's table. ‘Come all you who are hungry. Eat and drink of this body and this bread.’ We're doing that in public view.
How do we live the claims of the gospel in a way that’s humble—not arrogant, not presumptuous, not full of pride, not insider-outsider, not us-versus-them… we are the us.”
“The gospel is for all of us.”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
“When we pursue excellence it doesn’t have to come at the cost of our emotional and relational health.” (Ben Houltberg)
How do we form an identity and sense of self? Do we define ourselves based on the fragile glass shelter of what we achieve or how well we perform? If so, how does that affect our sense of meaning and purpose in life?
With the 2024 Paris Olympics underway, it’s easy to imagine how an elite athlete at the top of her game might form an identity based on her athletic or competitive performance.
In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes developmental scientist Ben Houltberg to reflect on the pursuit of achievement and excellence, exploring what’s at stake for our psychological and spiritual health when we find our identity and life’s meaning in our performance.
Together they discuss: the glass shelter of athletic achievement and the opportunity that emerges when it inevitably shatters; the various performance contexts of family, relationships, education, sports, career, and religion; the dangers of conditional acceptance based on performance; the performance-enhancing impact of healthy coaching and mentoring relationships; the transformative effects of unconditional love; and ultimately, how to be free from a performance-based identity.
About Ben Houltberg
Benjamin Houltberg is a developmental scientist, experienced marriage and family therapist, and president and CEO of Search Institute. He is associate research professor at the University of Southern California, and was previously associate professor of human development at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Psychology. Follow him @benhoultberg, and learn more about Search Institute online.
Show Notes
About Ben Houltberg: developmental scientist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and CEO of Search Institute
About “performance-based identity”
Olympics and athletic performance-based identity
“When we pursue excellence it doesn't have to come at the cost of our emotional and relational health.”
“What is my purpose?”
Olympic athlete Simone Biles’ public breakdown and dominant return to gymnastics
“If you think about the natural trajectory of an elite athlete, it is towards a performance-based identity.”
How elite athletes form their identity in their athletic performance.
“A Glass Shelter” of athletic achievement: what happens when that glass shelter breaks?
When the glass shelter breaks, it becomes a transformative opportunity.
“Whether it was youth sports and training for a marathon, or whether it was in elite athletes or whether it was in different large organizations and their staff employees … the profile emerges that it is in some ways a human condition: that performance-based identity can really trap us into an approach to life and an approach to relationships and approach to competition that is undermining us and will eventually lead to a shattered sense of self.”
Actor vs performer in the world (Action vs. Performance)
Influenced by what other people think we are
How to understand “performance context” across domains of sports, education, career, relationships, family, morality, and society at large
The dangers of limiting our identities to performance
Conditional acceptance based on performance
Human relationships, connectivity, and collectivism as performance enhancing
Coaching and mentoring to deal with the stress of performing
NCAA sports
Helping young people find “the spark”—their passion and potential and purpose
How the Search Institute studies performance-based identity
Christian faith and unconditional love
How to be free from a performance-based identity
Finding our identity in beauty, connection, and commonality
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
People have been given so many reasons to despise Christianity. What would it be to communicate with and for the “cultured despisers of the faith”? This was the audience Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote to in his seminal work, The Christian Faith, and it is the audience Mark Labberton sought to speak to when preaching at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California.
In this Conversing Short, Mark considers the importance of communicating the gospel in its fullness to a culture that understandably despises Christianity, rather than domesticating it as the ecclesiastical industrial complex has.
About Conversing Shorts
“In between my longer conversations with people who fascinate and inspire and challenge me, I share a short personal reflection, a focused episode that brings you the ideas, stories, questions, ponderings, and perspectives that animate Conversing and give voice to the purpose and heart of the show. Thanks for listening with me.”
About Mark Labberton
Mark Labberton is the Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Preaching at Fuller Seminary. He served as Fuller’s fifth president from 2013 to 2022. He’s the host of Conversing.
Show Notes
19th-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
"Cultured despisers of the faith” (introduced in The Christian Faith and On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers)
Darwin, Freud, and Nietzsche
“If you were a cultured person, you would have abandoned the faith.”
“People's life circumstances have, for understandable reasons, left them in a position to despise the faith.”
Reflecting Jesus or reflecting the “ecclesiastical industrial complex”?
Christian questions about what really matters
“The gospel itself, by God's revelation in Christ, if that's true, is a shocking surprise to the world.”
How the Gospel has been domesticated by the Church
Annie Dillard: if we understood the power of what we’re dealing with, we’d hand out crash helmets and seatbelts in church.
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
“Out of the greatest misery and the most devastating loss can come unimagined growth, and, in some cases, joy and happiness.”
Mark Labberton welcomes pioneering social entrepreneur Mawi Asgedom, an award-winning innovator, author, and advocate for social-emotional learning (SEL). Sharing his story of struggle, resilience, and redemption, Mawi describes his extraordinary journey from war-torn Ethiopia to a Sudanese refugee camp, to a childhood on welfare in an affluent American suburb, to Harvard graduate, to sharing a stage with Oprah Winfrey, to reimagining educational technology to improve youth mental health and thriving.
Together they discuss the essential life lessons Mawi has learned and taught through his remarkable personal history, including the difficult cultural transition as an Ethiopian refugee in the Chicago suburbs, the pain of losing his brother followed by the pain of losing his faith, the power of positivity and mature Christian faith, and his vision for helping children develop social-emotional skills to navigate life.
About Mawi Asgedom
Mawi Asgedom is an award-winning innovator, author, and advocate for social-emotional learning (SEL). He has spent over 20 years helping youth unlock their potential, training millions of educators and students, and collaborating with leading youth development organizations. His book, Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard, is a survival story of overcoming war, famine, suffering, and countless obstacles. He is the creator of Inner Heroes Universe, and his work has been featured by various media outlets, including Oprah Winfrey, who named her interview with Mawi one of her top 20 moments. A father of four school-aged kids, Mawi can often be found coaching youth sports on the weekends.
Show notes
Read Mawi Asgedom’s book: Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard
A story of challenge, struggle, pain and suffering; but also a story of God's faithfulness, and Mawi’s resilience, joy, devotion, love, intelligence, and hard work
Mawi’s childhood and origin story
Life in Tigray, Ethiopia
Civil War that led to the establishment of Eritrea
Mawi’s mother’s incredible journey from Ethiopia to Sudan, facing the dangers of hyenas, rebel forces, and homelessness with her three children
The normalcy of suffering
Describing the refugee camp in Sudan
How Mawi understands his personal history and life experience
A Nail Through the Finger: how parents in dire circumstances teach children to survive
“Where I come from, people expect a lot of bad things to happen. It's just part of how life is. In the States, people get really upset if any bad things happen.”
Mawi’s experience of cultural assimilation
His family’s relocation to Wheaton, Illinois, outside of Chicago, through World Relief
“Sweetness passed us by before we called it sweet.”
The cultural shock of moving to the U.S. and being the only Ethiopian family.
Challenges of isolation, language barriers, and racism
"Facing bullying and discrimination tested my resilience."
“That took me quite a long time to be able to step into who I really was and be like, ‘I got nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of my mom and dad. I'm proud of my background. I'm proud of every part of who I am.’ It took me a long time to be able to feel that and say that. I think that was probably the invisible kind of scar from that experience.”
“On the rise to become an exceptional achiever…”
The greatest poverty is a poverty of relationship: “I spoke one time at a correctional facility outside of Chicago … and he said, ‘I'd rather be a refugee and go through stuff you went through with a family that I was close to who loved me than be in this country by myself.’ And I thought about it and I was like, this student is correct. The greatest poverty really is a poverty relationship. It's when you have no one.”
Mawi’s relationship with his brother
Mawi’s friend, Mark Linz, missionary to Ethiopia
Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who gives me strength.”
“I believe that Mark. I believe there's something I could do. I don't have to worry about the fact that I live in a Section 8 housing. I don't have to worry about the fact that my father is unemployed, but these other kids in my school, their parents have great jobs. I believe that the creator of the universe loves me.”
The terror and grief of losing his brother in a drunk driving accident
Maintaining positive momentum through horrific, unimaginable, devastating challenges
“Out of the greatest misery and the most devastating loss can come unimagined growth, and, in some cases, joy and happiness.”
The agony of loss and the healing and learning that came from the experience of grace
Mawi’s Harvard experience
Losing Christian faith at Harvard: “I still remember one of the most shocking moments in my life. It was so shocking to me, Mark. I woke up, I think it was my second day of my sophomore year in my room. And I realized something: I didn't believe in God anymore. And it was a shocking existential moment. One way to think about it is: Losing Jesus was a different version of losing my brother. … When you're a true follower of Christ and you are connected to Christ and you pray every day, read the word every day and you put your faith in him. It's not a small loss. It's a massive loss.”
Depression and hopelessness
Maturing past a faith that had no room for doubt: “My faith now is rooted in doubt. It's rooted in the idea that there's so much I don't know, and, and yet I choose to have faith in Jesus.”
Social-emotional learning
Mawi’s entrepreneurial mindset
Mawi’s adolescent struggle with confidence and self-esteem
Mawi’s foray into working with children
“One of the most important things I learned, Mark, is the best way to help kids is to help the adults in their lives.”
Mawi’s new venture: Inner Heroes Universe, inspired by Pixar’s Inside Out
Using metaphors to make the abstract concrete: “an incredible inner world”
“I believe to reach the next generation, it's not going to work to try to convince them to do less media and to do things the way we had, the old way. We have to go to where they are and create rich media.”
“Imagine if you could only communicate positive psychology using art and storytelling. And you couldn't be didactic and you had to use imagination and creativity.”
Seeing through Mawi’s eyes and background: “a great instance of harvesting pain, of harvesting joy, of harvesting deep cultural difference, of harvesting challenging childhood experiences…”
Production Credits
Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
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