john a. powell is the director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California at Berkeley. He previously directed the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University and the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of "Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society." This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "john a. powell — Opening the Question of Race to the Question of Belonging." Find more at onbeing.org.

“Race is a little bit like gravity,” john powell says: experienced by all, understood by the few. He is an esteemed legal scholar and thinker who counsels all kinds of people and projects on the front lines of our present racial anguish and longings. Race is relational, he reminds us. It’s as much about whiteness as about color. And it largely plays out, as we’re learning through new science, in our unconscious minds. john powell is steeped in this new learning and offers it to us, as a form of everyday power, to animate our belonging to others that is already real. But we must claim it.

Mario Livio is a senior astrophysicist at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute. His books include: "Is God a Mathematician?" and "Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein — Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe." This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Mario Livio — Mysteries of an Expanding Universe." Find more at onbeing.org.

The Hubble Space Telescope, which turns 25 this year, has brought the beauty of the cosmos into our lives. Mario Livio works with discoveries it makes possible, studying things like dark energy, extrasolar planets, and white dwarf stars. He's fascinated with the enduring mystery of mathematics, the language of science. He describes the cosmic puzzles that accompany our greatest scientific advances.

Sr. Simone Campbell is the executive director of NETWORK. She is the author of "A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community." This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Simone Campbell — How to Be Spiritually Bold." Find more at onbeing.org.

She became a national figure as the face of the "Nuns on the Bus." Sr. Simone Campbell is a lawyer, lobbyist, poet, and Zen contemplative working on issues such as “mending the wealth gap,” “enacting a living wage,” and “crafting a faithful budget that benefits the 100%.” She is a helpful voice for longings so many of us share, across differences, about how to engage with the well-being of our neighbors in this complicated age.

Pico Iyer is a journalist and writer. He's written over a dozen books including "The Global Soul: Jet Lag," "Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home," "The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama," and "The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere." This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Pico Iyer — The Art of Stillness." Find more at onbeing.org.

Pico Iyer is one of our most eloquent explorers of what he calls the "inner world" — in himself and in the 21st century world at large. The journalist and novelist travels the globe from Ethiopia to North Korea and lives in Japan. But he also experiences a remote Benedictine hermitage as his second home, retreating there many times each year. In this intimate conversation, we explore the discoveries he's making and his practice of "the art of stillness.”

Jean Vanier is a philosopher and the founder of L'Arche. He lives full-time in the original community in Trosly-Breuil, France. He's also the recipient of the 2015 Templeton Prize. His books include "Befriending the Stranger," "The Story of L’Arche," and "Signs of the Times." This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jean Vanier — The Wisdom of Tenderness." Find more at onbeing.org.

The philosopher and Catholic social innovator Jean Vanier is a teacher of the wisdom of tenderness. The L’Arche movement, which he founded, centers around people with mental disabilities and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. We experience how Jean Vanier brings the most paradoxical religious teachings to life: that there’s power in humility, strength in weakness, and light in the darkness of human existence.