Could a Yiddish text from the Middle Ages serve as a guide to living now? Book composer and typographer Scott-Martin Kosofsky revives unlikely sources of "customs" for leading a modern life and marking sacred time. For Hanukkah and all the seasons upon us.

Diane Winston is the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication + Journalism at the University of Southern California. Krista Tippett spoke with her on November 2, 2011 from the studios of APM in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Diane Winston was in a studio at NPR West in Culver City, California. This interview is included in our show "Monsters We Love: TV's Pop Culture Theodicy." Download the mp3 of the produced show at onbeing.org.

Amoral zombies. Loving vampires. Righteous serial killers. And lots of God. That's all in the new TV season — a place where great writers and actors are telling the story of our time — playfully, violently, soulfully.

How we see the world is how we value it, says Ellen Davis. And poetry is a way to rediscover the lost art of being creatures. An hour of learning and slowing down, with the "Mad Farmer" poems of Wendell Berry and a new way to take in the "poetry" of Genesis.

More and more people in our time are disconnected from religious institutions, at least for part of their lives. Others are religious and find themselves creating a family with a spouse from another tradition or no tradition at all. And the experience of parenting tends to raise spiritual questions anew. We sense that there is a spiritual aspect to our children's natures and wonder how to support and nurture that. The spiritual life, our guest says, begins not in abstractions, but in concrete everyday experiences. And children need our questions as much as our answers. Ellen Davis is the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at the Duke University Divinity School. Krista Tippett spoke with her on May 15, 2010 from the studios of APM in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Ellen Davis was in a studio at Duke University in Durham, NC. This interview is included in our show "Ellen Davis on The Poetry of Creatures." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/poetry-creatures/117

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is the Senior Religion Editor for the Huffington Post. Krista Tippett spoke with him on October 5, 2011 from the studios of APM in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Paul Brandeis Raushenbush was in the Argot Studios in New York City. This interview is included in our show "Occupying the Gospel." Download the produced show at onbeing.org.

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush opens up a hidden but possibly re-emerging influence in the DNA of American Christianity, reaching back to the Social Gospel movement at the turn of the 20th century. And, the Huffington Post religion editor shares what he's learning about religion in this century's evolving realm of technology.

Ricard is a French-Tibetan monk and the Dalai Lama's French interpreter. Krista Tippett spoke with him on September 30, 2009 in Vancouver, Canada. This interview is included in our show "The 'Happiest' Man in the World."

A renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher shares his thoughts on the meaning of happiness, and how he understands spirituality as "contemplative science."

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/happiest-man-world-meeting-matthieu-ricard/201