In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Ilia Delio talks with Episcopal priest and spiritual director Rev. Dr. Hillary Raining about what happens when public life shows up in the parish—how pastors can hold political tension without letting church life collapse into partisanship, and why hope and joy remain non-negotiable in a polarized age. Together they explore a renewed mystical imagination for Christianity: experience that leads to transformation, and transformation that bears fruit in justice.

Hillary reflects on leading a large Washington, D.C. congregation where worship must flow into weekday service while also tending the inner life. Along the way, the conversation names the fatigue and anxiety many younger adults carry (economy, climate, AI) and re-centers practices that steady courage: prayer, community, and a lively sense of God’s presence. Later, Ilia and Hillary speak candidly about serving as women in systems marked by patriarchy, and what an integrated, humane faith might look like now.

ABOUT REV. DR. HILLARY RAINING

“The emotional and physical lives of our ancestors… fundamentally affect our emotional and physical lives as well… The practice of gratitude… changes—not only those who practice it—but also the generations that follow.”

The Rev. Dr. Hillary Raining is an Episcopal Priest serving as Rector at St. Columba’s in Washington, D.C. She is also the founder of The Hive (www.thehiveapiary.com), an online spirituality and wellness community. Actively involved in the Episcopal Church, she served on multiple committees and as a professor and consultant for various Seminaries. She is also a published writer and a sought-after public speaker. With several degrees and certifications in theology, liturgy, psychology, trauma integration, yoga, and forest therapy, she seeks to empower others through healing and spiritual direction while leading innovative ministry projects.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Robert Nicastro continues his conversation with philosopher Don Viney. Together, they explore Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of a planetary mind—asking whether today’s global networks are cultivating consciousness and love, or tempting us to worship technology for its own sake.

What happens when tools eclipse persons? When CGI and AI overwhelm story and relationship? Viney contrasts spectacle with narrative and argues that technology should serve the growth of consciousness—embodiment, compassion, and responsibility—rather than replace it. He also pushes back on disembodied transhumanist dreams, advocating for a deeply human path forward.

Later in the episode, Robert and Don turn to “building the earth,” love as the axis of evolution, and a daring theology of the “not-yet”—where God’s actuality grows in relationship with the world. Along the way, they consider citizenship of the universe and Teilhard’s incandescent hope that humanity might one day “master the energies of love.”

ABOUT DON VINEY

“True love unites in such a way as to augment rather than to diminish the personalities of those caught in its Fire.”

Donald Wayne Viney, Ph.D. received degrees in philosophy from Colorado State University (1977) and the University of Oklahoma (1979, 1982). He is a three-time recipient of the title “University Professor” at Pittsburg State University (Kansas) where he taught from 1984 until his retirement in 2022. He is the author of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God (1985), senior editor of Hartshorne’s Creative Experiencing: A Philosophy of Freedom (2011), and co-author, with George W. Shields, of The Mind of Charles Hartshorne: A Critical Examination (2020). He has written extensively on the nineteenth century Breton philosopher, Jules Lequyer, and published two books of translations of Lequyer’s writings. In addition, he is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and reviews on a variety of topics, including six articles on Teilhard de Chardin and an annotated translation of Marcel Brion’s 1951 interview with Teilhard. He serves on the editorial boards of Process Studies and the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. Viney is also a singer-songwriter.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Robert Nicastro sits down with philosopher and musician Don Viney to trace his journey from the arts to philosophy—and the unexpected conversion that led him to process thought. Together, they explore the creative tension between art and thought, and how beauty, music, and literature often touch places philosophical language cannot reach.

Don shares formative moments from studying with Charles Hartshorne and his early fascination with Teilhard de Chardin—unpacking how Teilhard’s evolutionary mysticism resonates with those seeking meaning in a fragmented world. Along the way, the conversation wrestles with non-toxic, life-giving concepts of God and what makes a metaphysical vision truly satisfying in a scientific age.

Later in the episode, Viney reflects on Teilhard’s radical hope, personhood at the heart of the cosmos, and the power of process thinking to awaken a fresh sense of spiritual responsibility.

ABOUT DON VINEY

“True love unites in such a way as to augment rather than to diminish the personalities of those caught in its Fire.”

Donald Wayne Viney, Ph.D. received degrees in philosophy from Colorado State University (1977) and the University of Oklahoma (1979, 1982). He is a three-time recipient of the title “University Professor” at Pittsburg State University (Kansas) where he taught from 1984 until his retirement in 2022. He is the author of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God (1985), senior editor of Hartshorne’s Creative Experiencing: A Philosophy of Freedom (2011), and co-author, with George W. Shields, of The Mind of Charles Hartshorne: A Critical Examination (2020). He has written extensively on the nineteenth century Breton philosopher, Jules Lequyer, and published two books of translations of Lequyer’s writings. In addition, he is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and reviews on a variety of topics, including six articles on Teilhard de Chardin and an annotated translation of Marcel Brion’s 1951 interview with Teilhard. He serves on the editorial boards of Process Studies and the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. Viney is also a singer-songwriter.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio continues her conversation with neuroanthropologist Terrence Deacon. Together, they explore how we might “fall up” into a collective future—probing the limits of machines and minds, and why complexity in nature often emerges not by work, but by play.

What happens when we mistake computation for thinking? When our tools become mirrors and we fall for our own reflection? From Plato’s worry about writing to today’s large language models, Deacon asks how outsourcing our capacities can both diminish autonomy and unlock astonishing, shared intelligence—raising new questions about freedom, dependence, and human flourishing.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Deacon trace “falling up” through biology—hemoglobin’s elegant duplications, altruism, and the rule of play—before turning to the noosphere: a future where persons remain distinct yet increasingly interdependent. Along the way they weigh the risks of “queen bee” totalisms against the promise of a freer, more cooperative species life.

ABOUT TERRENCE DEACON

“Almost everything we do is with respect to something that doesn’t yet exist… All of our actions… are really about that absence. I actually think that this is the essence of what it means for something to be alive.”

Professor Terrence Deacon is Distinguished Professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously held faculty positions at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University. His research in comparative and developmental neuroanatomy has focused on the human brain, using physiological, quantitative, and cross-species methods. He is the author of The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain (1997), which explores how language and the human brain evolved together, and Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012), which examines how thermodynamic, self-organizing, semiotic, and evolutionary processes gave rise to life and mind. He is currently working on a new book, Falling Up: How Inverse Darwinism Catalyzes Evolution, which explores how the relaxation of natural selection and subsequent degenerative processes have paradoxically contributed to the evolution of increasing biological complexity.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio engages neuroanthropologist Terrence Deacon. Together, they probe the paradox of presence and absence—how constraint, incompleteness, and time shape mind, language, and the emergence of human meaning. From Charles Sanders Peirce to Claude Shannon, Deacon traces a lineage that reframes form not as what’s added, but as what’s held back.

What happens when we privilege what’s present while ignoring the creative force of what’s missing? How does constraint give rise to information, and why might Gödel’s incompleteness illuminate consciousness more than mechanism alone? Moving through Descartes’ split of mind and matter, Deacon proposes that what we call “the mental” is the constraint-aspect of the physical—a shift that dissolves false dualisms and re-roots knowing in embodiment.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Deacon explore symbolic abstraction, culture, and ecology—how our ungrounded representations both empower and endanger us. They close by examining today’s so-called “artificial intelligence,” arguing it’s better understood as a simulation of intelligence, and asking what a grounded, value-aware future might require of us.

ABOUT TERRENCE DEACON

“Almost everything we do is with respect to something that doesn’t yet exist… All of our actions… are really about that absence. I actually think that this is the essence of what it means for something to be alive.”

Professor Terrence Deacon is Distinguished Professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously held faculty positions at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University. His research in comparative and developmental neuroanatomy has focused on the human brain, using physiological, quantitative, and cross-species methods. He is the author of The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain (1997), which explores how language and the human brain evolved together, and Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012), which examines how thermodynamic, self-organizing, semiotic, and evolutionary processes gave rise to life and mind. He is currently working on a new book, Falling Up: How Inverse Darwinism Catalyzes Evolution, which explores how the relaxation of natural selection and subsequent degenerative processes have paradoxically contributed to the evolution of increasing biological complexity.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this continuation of their rich exchange, Sr. Ilia Delio and Dr. Iain McGilchrist explore the deeper dimensions of consciousness—and how our overreliance on the left hemisphere of the brain distorts our understanding of reality, relationships, and even God.

Together, they reflect on:

• How attentiveness shapes the way we relate to the world
• The role of environment in forming perception and meaning
• Why prayer, nature, and human relationships are vital to human flourishing
• The distinction between brain and mind—and the mystery of consciousness itself
• Why the future depends not just on new tools, but on a renewed inner life

With clarity and conviction, Iain invites us to recover the neglected right brain, embrace relational knowing, and remember the divine ground that holds us. In a culture driven by certainty and efficiency, this episode points gently back toward wonder, prayer, and possibility.

ABOUT IAIN MCGILCHRIST

“What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press. www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio engages renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Together, they explore the profound implications of the brain’s divided hemispheres—and how our overreliance on the left brain might be shaping Western culture in unexpected ways.

What happens when we privilege abstract data over embodied experience? When mechanistic thinking crowds out emotional understanding and context? Drawing from his influential works The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things, Dr. McGilchrist proposes that the right hemisphere—long neglected—holds the key to restoring balance, wisdom, and connection in our lives and societies.

Later in the episode, Sr. Ilia and Dr. McGilchrist discuss the nature of consciousness, the mystery of mind beyond brain, and the role of implicit knowing in liturgy, love, and the deepest human experiences.

ABOUT IAIN MCGILCHRIST

“What is required is an attentive response to something real and other than ourselves, of which we have only inklings at first, but which comes more and more into being through our response to it – if we are truly responsive to it. We nurture it into being; or not. In this it has something of the structure of love.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). In November 2021 his two-volume work The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World was published by Perspectiva Press. www.channelmcgilchrist.com

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In the second half of her conversation with independent scholar Jared Morningstar, Sr. Ilia Delio explores how religion might evolve in light of today’s ecological and cultural disruptions. Drawing from Islamic philosophy, metamodernism, and process thought, Ilia and Jared consider what it means to reimagine religion in a world shaped by uncertainty, pluralism, and accelerating technology.

Together they ask: Can an ecological worldview renew religious imagination? What is metamodernism, and how might it offer a new spiritual framework for global society? And as science and tech continue to dominate cultural life, does religion still hold something essential?

Later in the episode, they explore the worldviews influencing Silicon Valley—and whether all religious perspectives offer equal value in shaping our future.

ABOUT JARED MORNINGSTAR

"Almost everything worthwhile which has accumulated in any religious tradition was, in its own time, a striking ingression of fresh creativity—a creativity, of course, in contact with the self-same wellspring of inspiration at the root of the founding moments of the tradition in question.”

Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar with academic interests in philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, comparative religion, metamodern spirituality, and interfaith dialogue. His work in these areas seeks to offer robust responses to issues of inter-religious conflict, contemporary nihilism, and the "meaning crisis," among other things. Jared graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2018 with degrees in religion and Scandinavian studies and currently works for the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association. 

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Sr. Ilia Delio speaks with independent scholar Jared Morningstar about the transformative potential of science-informed spirituality. Drawing from Islamic philosophy, including the thought of Muhammad Iqbal, Jared explores how process thought might bridge religious divides and invite a deeper interfaith convergence—one grounded in creativity, ecological awareness, and scientific integrity.

Together, Sr. Ilia and Jared reflect on the long but fractured relationship between science and religion. Why have these traditions, which once collaborated, become estranged? What would it take to move beyond entrenched patriarchal and tribal patterns—particularly those that continue to shape the experiences of women within religious life?

Later in the episode, the conversation turns to the enduring role of tradition and the search for meaning in a complex, pluralistic world.

ABOUT JARED MORNINGSTAR

"Almost everything worthwhile which has accumulated in any religious tradition was, in its own time, a striking ingression of fresh creativity—a creativity, of course, in contact with the self-same wellspring of inspiration at the root of the founding moments of the tradition in question.”

Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar with academic interests in philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, comparative religion, metamodern spirituality, and interfaith dialogue. His work in these areas seeks to offer robust responses to issues of inter-religious conflict, contemporary nihilism, and the "meaning crisis," among other things. Jared graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2018 with degrees in religion and Scandinavian studies and currently works for the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association. 

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.

In the second part of Ilia Delio’s conversation with theologian Adam Clark, the focus shifts to questions at the intersection of power, technology, and ethics. How does liberation theology speak to the structures of modern technological society—and what does it say about the nature of evil?

Together, Ilia and Adam explore:

• The social implications of technology (and it’s power)
• How liberation theology can challenge systems of injustice in a digital age
• Whether quantum physics can offer a foundation for ethical action

Adam Clark, a student of James Cone and advocate for justice in both church and society, invites us to consider whether deep theological wisdom can meet the complexities of our age—and help guide us toward more just, relational ways of being.

ABOUT ADAM CLARK

"To be filled with God is a great thing; to be filled with the fullness of God is still greater; to be filled with all the fullness of God is greatest of all."

Adam Clark is a professor of Theology at Xavier University and holds a PhD from Union Theological Seminary. Studying under James Cone, Adam brings rigorous and skillful expertise to the movement of liberation theology. He currently serves as co-chair of the Black Theology Group at the American Academy of Religion, actively publishes in the area of black theology and black religion and participates in social justice groups at Xavier and in the Cincinnati area.

Whether you're enjoying Hunger for Wholeness or see ways we can improve, we’d genuinely value your feedback. Your insights help us serve our listening community with greater depth and clarity. Visit christogenesis.org/feedback to share your thoughts. Thanks for being part of the journey.

Support the show

A huge thank you to all of you who subscribe and support our show!

Support for A Hunger for Wholeness comes from the Fetzer Institute. Fetzer supports a movement of organizations who are applying spiritual solutions to society's toughest problems. Get involved at fetzer.org.

Visit the Center for Christogenesis' website at christogenesis.org/podcast to browse all Hunger for Wholeness episodes and read more from Ilia Delio. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for episode releases and other updates.