How do fairy stories prepare children for a world of suffering, courage, beauty, and surprise? And what happens when adults lose the imagination to see rain, trees, music, and ordinary acts of making as anything more than useful resources? Dr. Junius Johnson joins Brian Williams to explore how fantasy gives us categories for facing real danger, recognizing evil, practicing courage, and remaining open to wonder. Drawing from Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, The Neverending Story, and his own life as a musician and father, Junius argues that good stories do more than entertain us. They train our affections and help us become the kind of people who can enter the world with wisdom, desire, and hope.

Their conversation moves from dragons and unicorns to grief, beauty, friendship, music, and the work of making. Along the way, Junius offers a practical invitation: read stories that enlarge your moral imagination, make something beautiful even when no one is watching, and resist the habit of calling the world “merely” ordinary.

About the Guest
Junius Johnson is a writer, teacher, speaker, independent scholar, and musician. His work focuses on beauty, imagination, and wonder in the Christian and Classical intellectual traditions. He is the executive director of Junius Johnson Academics and holds a BA from Oral Roberts University (English Lit), an MAR from Yale Divinity School (Historical Theology), and an MA, two MPhils, and a PhD (Philosophical Theology) from Yale University. He is the author of 5 books and is a contributing writer for the Humanitas textbooks with Classical Academic Press. He is co-host of The Classical Mind, a podcast discussing the great books of the Western tradition.

Guest Links
Junius Johnson Academics | https://academics.juniusjohnson.com/
Junius Johnson Publications | https://www.juniusjohnson.com/
The Classical Mind Podcast | https://www.theclassicalmind.com/

On Teaching Fairy Stories | https://www.amazon.com/dp/1600514928/

Father of Lights | https://www.amazon.com/Father-Lights-Theology-Life-World/dp/1540964892/
Junius Johnson on Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/junius_johnson/
Junius Johnson on X | https://x.com/DrJuniusJohnson
Junius Johnson Academics on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/JuniusJohnsonAcademics
Junius Johnson Academics on YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@juniusjohnsonacademics

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How can we prepare for death without becoming consumed by it? And what might the lost art of dying teach us about living with greater wisdom, agency, and hope? Dr. Lydia Dugdale joins Brian Williams to recover an older vision of mortality, one in which preparing for death meant tending to our relationships, forming our character, asking ultimate questions, and learning when medical technology helps or harms. Their conversation offers a practical invitation: rather than leaving our final decisions to fear, haste, or unfamiliar institutions, we can begin now to live the kind of life that makes dying well possible.

Lydia and Brian discuss hope as a virtue that can be practiced rather than a feeling we must wait to receive. Lydia identifies five practices that help us resist despair: lament, endurance, imagination, confidence formed through gratitude, and the sustaining love of community.

About the Guest
Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Co-Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
A practicing internist, Dr Dugdale moved to Columbia in 2019 from Yale University, where she previously served as Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics and founding Co-Director of the Yale Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion. Her scholarship focuses on end-of-life issues, the role of aesthetics in ethics, moral injury, and the doctor-patient relationship. She edited Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying (HarperOne, 2020), a popular press book on the preparation for death. Dr Dugdale attended medical school at the University of Chicago, completed residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and holds a MAR in ethics from Yale Divinity School.

Guest Links
The Lost Art of Dying | https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Art-Dying-Reviving-Forgotten/dp/0062932640/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_0?pd_rd_w=dJyQ3&content-id=amzn1.sym.352fa4e9-2aa8-47c3-b5ac-8a90ddbece20%3Aamzn1.symc.40e6a10e-cbc4-4fa5-81e3-4435ff64d03b&pf_rd_p=352fa4e9-2aa8-47c3-b5ac-8a90ddbece20&pf_rd_r=ZS5VF87D3067V5WKN4X0&pd_rd_wg=CgWsb&pd_rd_r=48553bce-b241-40ab-8dd5-93fc63e7fdb3&pd_rd_i=0062932640

Dying in the Twenty-First Century | https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262534598/dying-in-the-twenty-first-century/

Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics on X | https://x.com/columbia_ccme

Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/ColumbiaCenterforClinicalMedicalEthics

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How does a father help his son become a good man? In this episode of Forged, Brian Williams speaks with Marine veteran, novelist, and journalist Elliot Ackerman about the small habits and embodied patterns that shape a man’s life and form the next generation: wearing a suit with intention, writing a thank-you note, keeping a friend, caring for meaningful objects, reading deeply, and learning to live with purpose. Drawing from Ackerman’s series “A Man Should Know,” the conversation explores why fathers, coaches, mentors, and male friendships matter in a culture where many young men are left to make it up as they go. For fathers seeking to lead their homes with wisdom, steadiness, and hope, this conversation offers a clear reminder: formation often begins in the little things.

Ackerman also reflects on the Marine Corps, the influence of his own father, the meaning carried by inherited objects, the discipline of writing, and the quiet work of raising children with both acceptance and standards. Together, Brian and Elliot consider how fathers pass on more than advice. They pass on habits, stories, loves, friendships, and a way of seeing the world.

About the Guest
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Sheepdogs, Halcyon, 2034 (coauthor), Red Dress in Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoirs The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan and Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a Marine veteran who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, DC.

Elliot Ackerman at Penguin Random House | https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2133889/elliot-ackerman/

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What kind of person is formed by songs, stories, gardens, books, and the patient work of making? This episode is a living picture of classical education beyond the classroom. In this conversation, Brian Williams speaks with singer-songwriter, author, and Rabbit Room founder Andrew Peterson about how truth, goodness, and beauty are carried through embodied practices: reading aloud, making music, gathering around tables, learning from creation, and practicing a craft over time. Andrew invites parents, educators, and ordinary makers to recover the courage to begin badly, the discipline to keep going, and the joy of telling the truth as beautifully as we can.

Together, Brian and Andrew explore the Rabbit Room as a “wayside inn” for artists and readers, the formative power of handmade work, the goodness of amateur creativity rooted in love, and the danger of bypassing craft. This conversation offers a hopeful vision for homes, schools, and communities where beauty is not an extra, but part of how children and adults become fully human.

About the Guest
Andrew Peterson is a singer-songwriter, author, and founder of the Rabbit Room. Andrew has released more than ten records over the past twenty years, earning him a reputation for songs that connect with his listeners in ways equally powerful, poetic, and intimate. As an author, Andrew’s books include the four volumes of the award-winning Wing feather Saga, which have sold more than a million copies, along with his creative memoirs, Adorning the Dark, and The God of the Garden. He’s also an executive producer of the Wing feather Saga Animated Series, which is currently in production on its third season with Angel Studios. In 2008 Andrew founded the Rabbit Room, a nonprofit organization based in Nashville, Tennessee that nourishes Christ-centered communities by cultivating and curating stories, art, and music.

Guest Links
Andrew Peterson | https://www.andrew-peterson.com/
The Rabbit Room | https://www.rabbitroom.com/
The Wingfeather Saga | https://www.wingfeathersaga.com/
Adorning the Dark | https://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/product/adorning-the-dark-2/adorning-the-dark-2/
The God of the Garden | https://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/product/the-god-of-the-garden-2/

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What happens when young adults have been taught how to achieve, but not how to work, love, and rest like whole persons? In this episode of Forged, Dr. Brian Williams speaks with Dr. Anna Bonta Moreland about The Young Adult Playbook and the ordinary habits that help men and women build lives of purpose. Their conversation moves from Argentine family dinners and a different relationship to time, to the loneliness and risk-aversion many young adults feel around dating, vocation, and leisure. Along the way, Dr. Moreland offers a hopeful vision for recovering agency through embodied friendship, honest conversation, good work, Sabbath-shaped leisure, prayer, and practical courage.

This is a conversation for young adults, parents, teachers, and anyone who senses that achievement alone cannot form a life. Dr. Moreland helps name the fear many students carry into adulthood, then points toward a better way: not escape from responsibility, but a deeper education in how to live.

About the Guest
Dr. Anna Bonta Moreland is the Anne Quinn Welsh Endowed Chair and Director of the University Honors Program at Villanova University. A full professor in the Department of Humanities, her academic expertise and research include medieval theology, interfaith dialogue, and comparative theology. She is the author of Known by Nature: Thomas Aquinas on Natural Knowledge of God (Crossroad/Herder, 2010), Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), and The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like it Matters (CUA Press, 2024). She has received grants from the John Templeton Foundation, the Lilly Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She received her B.A. in Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston College under the direction of Michael J. Buckley, S.J.

Guest Links
Anna Moreland | https://dspt.edu/anna-moreland
The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like It Matters | https://www.amazon.com/Young-Adult-Playbook-Living-Matters/dp/0813239206

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What does it take to form a life with roots, discipline, and courage in an age of distraction and drift? In this episode of Forged, Brian Williams talks with R. R. Reno about the ordinary practices that shape the soul: family dinners, church, books, marriage, friendship, cooking, architecture, and the demanding craft of rock climbing. Reno reflects on growing up in Baltimore, learning endurance in Yosemite, finding stability in marriage and worship, and pursuing excellence as a teacher, writer, and Christian. Along the way, he considers why beauty trains our affections, why embodied disciplines matter, and what it means to “do battle without hatred.”

The conversation moves from childhood rhythms and the gift of rootedness to the spiritual trial of physical risk, the public nature of architecture, and the vocation of First Things as a guide for readers seeking clarity in a fractured cultural moment.

About the Guest
R. R. Reno has served as Editor of First Things since 2011. He received his PhD in
theology from Yale University, and taught theology and ethics at Creighton
University in Omaha, Nebraska for twenty years. He has published in many
academic journals, magazines, and newspapers. His most recent books include The
End of Interpretation, Return of the Strong Gods, and Resurrecting the Idea of a
Christian Society.

Guest Links
First Things | https://www.firstthings.com

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What would it mean to practice festival at home, in school, and in church? In this episode of Forged, Brian Williams speaks with Father Nathan Carr about the posture and practice of festival as a way of living with joy, gratitude, and holy attention in the midst of ordinary time. Drawing from his work as priest, headmaster, husband, father, and author of Festive School, Carr reflects on Christian calendars, prayer books, school feasts, household rituals, and the slow formation of children who learn not merely to observe the good, but to receive and name it. This conversation is an invitation to recover joy as discipline, delight as formation, and celebration as a serious part of Christian life.

Together, Brian and Father Carr consider how homes, schools, and churches can resist anxiety, urgency, cynicism, and suspicion by learning to inhabit time differently. From Benedictine hours and red-letter feast days to hidden Wise Men during Advent and children serving in the liturgy, this episode explores the small, concrete practices that teach us to see the world as gift.

About the Guest
Father Nathan Carr serves as Vicar and Priest-in-Charge of St. John’s Episcopal Oklahoma City, Missioner for Strategic Development for the Diocese and Bishop, and Headmaster of The Academy—an 1100-student Christian School of Classics with 3 campuses throughout the OK  metro. He and his wife Sarah co-own Commonplace Books OKC, chase six children around day and night (one of whom is now married!), and are now willing to take naps in the middle of the day. Nathan is author of Festive School, watches far too many car repair shows in his spare time, and serves as Chairman of the Ralston College Board of Governors.

Guest Links
The Academy | https://theacademyok.org
Commonplace Books OKC | https://commonplacebooksokc.com/
Festive School | https://classicalacademicpress.com/products/festive-school?_pos=1&_sid=665198961&_ss=r
Student Prayer Book | https://classicalacademicpress.com/products/student-prayer-book?_pos=1&_sid=674d00509&_ss=r

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Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org
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What does beauty have to do with the spaces where we learn, teach, worship, and gather? In this shared bonus episode of Composed and Forged, Christine Perrin speaks with Brian Williams about Templeton Hall, the home of the Templeton Honors College, and the deep work of making a place that feels whole, hospitable, and human. Their conversation moves from architecture and furniture to poetry, asking how beauty forms us before we can fully explain what it has done. This is an episode about attention, creation, community, and the grace of places that help us breathe more deeply and live more faithfully.

Brian reflects on the making of Templeton Hall at Eastern University as an act of stewardship, one that honors the old while creating room for students and faculty to dwell together in the pursuit of the true, the good, the beautiful. Christine and Brian consider why beauty is not a luxury, why material places matter to Christian formation, and how the experience of a beautiful space can awaken desire for God. The episode closes fittingly with Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” a poem of praise for the dappled, particular, and creaturely world.

References and Links
Templeton Honors College | https://templeton.eastern.edu/
Templeton Hall | https://templeton.eastern.edu/life-community/templeton-hall
Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building | https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028
Gregory Wolfe, Beauty Will Save the World | https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Will-Save-World-Ideological/dp/1610171004
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot | https://www.amazon.com/Idiot-Penguin-Classics-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/014044792X
C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy | https://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Joy-Shape-Early-Life/dp/0062565435
Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove | https://angelicopress.com/products/the-descent-of-the-dove?srsltid=AfmBOop0_4ZZscz8U6o_ldEPhSYpkPOBsrJotPNumtbWjmzkJWtypzrJ
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty

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What does distance running teach us about the body, failure, and the long work of becoming whole? In this episode of Forged, Brian Williams speaks with American distance running legend Sara Hall about the discipline and delight of a life spent running, competing, recovering, parenting, and learning to receive her identity from God rather than performance. On her 43rd birthday, Sara reflects on more than twenty-five years in elite running, the injuries and disappointments that reshaped her, the joy of competition when it is rightly ordered, and the deeper love that has sustained her through the grind.

The conversation also turns toward family, marriage, adoption, Ethiopia, and the work Sara and Ryan Hall have pursued through the Hall Steps Foundation. Sara offers a grounded picture of vocation in motion: a life shaped by training, service, sleep, dinner around the table, and the steady grace of being loved apart from achievement.

About the Guest
Sara Hall is a professional runner, Christian, and author. Sara Hall has been a fixture atop American distance running for more than two decades: first as a national high school champion, then as an NCAA star at Stanford University, and later, as the only pro runner to ever win U.S. titles in the mile and the marathon. She has 10 national titles to her name and was the top American finisher at the World Athletics Championships. She is also the former half marathon national record holder, the runner-up from the 2020 London Marathon, and a two-time winner of the Mastercard New York Mini 10K. Hall attended Stanford University where she was a seven-time All-American. While at Stanford, she met her current husband and coach, Ryan Hall, who owns the American record in the men’s half marathon. The two got married in 2005 and four years later formed the Hall Steps Foundation to help fight world poverty through better health. In 2015, they adopted four sisters from Ethiopia.

Guest Links
For the Love of the Grind | https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/the-love-of-the-grind-9781250404282/
The Hall Steps Foundation | https://www.thestepsfoundation.org/

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What is art for, and why does beauty awaken deep longings within us? In this conversation, Brian Williams joins artist, Bruce Herman, in his studio to explore the human calling to create, the role beauty plays in shaping the soul, and the discipline of learning to see. Herman argues that we are not merely consumers but makers by nature, and that art at its best is a form of hospitality that invites others into a meaningful encounter. Through stories of childhood wonder, reflections on modern art, and the language of longing, this episode offers a compelling vision of everyday creativity, from painting and poetry to spreadsheets and shared meals.

About the Guest
An American painter, author, and speaker, Herman lives (with his wife Meg, extended family, and assorted friendly beasts) in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Herman’s paintings, prints, and drawings have been exhibited nationally in more than 150 shows––in most major cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington––as well as internationally in Italy, England, Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, and Israel.

Guest Links
Bruce Herman Website | http://www.bruceherman.com/
Makers by Nature | https://www.ivpress.com/makers-by-nature 

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