Humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now in the 21st century we swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranhainfested rivers to test our limits. Swimming is an introspective and silent sport in a chaotic and noisy age, it’s therapeutic for both the mind and body, and it’s an adventurous way to get from point A to point B. It’s also one route to that elusive, ecstatic state of flow.   Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer and surfer, is a longtime journalist for The New York Times and the author of American Chinatown; her first children’s book, Sarah and the Big Wave, about the first woman to surf Mavericks; and Why We Swim. 

Each year the cathedral chooses a theme for inspiration and reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing. Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with the author about what seduces us to water despite its dangers, why we come back to it again and again, and what that says about being human.  

Bonnie Tsui is a longtime journalist for The New York Times and the author of WHY WE SWIM, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a TIME Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020, an NPR Best Book of 2020, and a Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe bestseller. It is currently being translated into seven languages. Her first children’s book, SARAH & THE BIG WAVE, about the first woman to surf Mavericks, will be published in May. She lives, swims, and surfs in the Bay Area. 

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.  

The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host, Malcolm Clemens Young, the dean of Grace Cathedral, and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world.  More about Grace Forum Online  

You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. Learn all the many ways to give at gracecathedral.org/give. Thank you!

In the 1960s, three-quarters of American children lived in families with two first-time married, heterosexual parents. Today fewer than half do. The conventional family has broken into a multitude of perfect families, including gay families, multiparent families, adoptive families, foster families, families built through assisted reproduction, single parent-headed families, and child-free families. What does it mean to be an “ideal family” in America today? And for families learning to deal with their exceptional children, to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent should they help them become their best selves?

In his books New Family Values and Far from the Tree, the Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology and bestselling author Andrew Solomon explores the startling proposition that diversity is what unites us all. The experience of difference within families is universal; these stories are everyone’s stories. And themes of generosity, acceptance, and tolerance expand our definition of what it is to be human.

Each year the cathedral chooses a theme for inspiration and reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing. Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Solomon about how to make peace with difference across generations.  

About the guest

Andrew Solomon, Ph.D., is a writer and lecturer on politics, culture and psychology; winner of the National Book Award; and an activist in LGBTQ rights, mental health, and the arts. He is Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University Medical Center, Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale University, and a former President of PEN American Center. He is the author of the best-selling Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity (2012), Far and Away: How Travel Can Change the World) (2016) and New Family Values (2018) among others.

The vital signs of the planet – CO2, global temperatures and sea levels rising – are telling us that it is in the midst of a medical emergency. What does it mean to be a human being on Earth when every living system is declining, and the rate of that decline is accelerating? What is our role in setting the planet on the path to healing?

Ellie Cohen is the CEO of The Climate Center, and a leader in catalyzing cross-boundary, collaborative, and just responses to the climate crisis. She is leading the campaign to help California, the world’s fifth largest economy, serve as a model for the rest of the country and the world.

Each year the cathedral chooses a theme for inspiration and reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing. Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation in advance of Earth Day about where we are today, where we need to be tomorrow, and how we’re going to get there.

About the guest Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate Center, is a leader in catalyzing cross-boundary, collaborative, and just responses to the climate crisis. She oversees the statewide Climate-Safe California campaign to achieve net-negative emissions by 2030, to capture more carbon than we are emitting, catalyzing the nation and the world into accelerated climate action. Ellie served as President and CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science for 20 years where she and the organization’s 160 scientists developed climate-smart conservation solutions for wildlife and people. Under her leadership, the organization grew five-fold to a workforce of 200 and was invited as an Observer NGO to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. An honors graduate of Duke University (botany) and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (MPP), Ellie has received numerous accolades including the Beyond Duke Alumni Award for Service and Leadership (2019), the National Park Service Pacific West Region Partnership Award (2018), and the Bay Nature Environmental Hero Award (2012). Ellie currently serves as an appointed member of the San Anselmo Sustainability Commission. You can follow Ellie on  Twitter and LinkedIn.

We are living in times of immense challenge on every front - socially, politically, ecologically and spiritually. We are destroying the natural systems on which we rely, making many of us feel alienated and lost. We are in one of the most profound transitions in human history - we need a new story to reorient and ground ourselves to meet these challenges.  

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim are co-directors of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, a project which evokes the spiritual wisdom and ecological ethics from the world’s religions for the healing of both people and the planet. They are also creators, with Brian Thomas Swimme, of the multimedia project Journey of the Universe, which weaves together the best of modern science with literature, history, philosophy and religion to inspire people to preserve, protect, and heal our common planetary home. 

Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation about the journey of who we are, how we got here, where we are headed and how we belong.  You can also hear Mary Evelyn Tucker guest preach on Sunday, March 14 at our 11 a.m. Choral Eucharist.

Buy Journey of the Universe. 

As we approach the tenth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, inequity and inequality continue to be on the rise. Join us to hear from Judith Butler, UC Berkeley’s Maxine Elliot Professor Emeritus in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory on her latest book The Force of Nonviolence.  

As featured in the New Yorker, Butler argues that our times, or perhaps all times, call for imagining an entirely new way for humans to live together in the world—a world of what Butler calls “radical equality.” Dean Malcolm Clemens Young and Dr. Butler will discuss how this radical ideal might help heal our divided world. 

Buy her book. 

Larry Brilliant is a physician and epidemiologist, CEO of Pandefense Advisory, senior advisor at Skoll Foundation and former professor of epidemiology and WHO medical officer. He is also a person of abiding faith.

He joined Dean Malcolm Clemens Young in March of 2019 to reflect upon what we could learn from the history of smallpox as we face pandemics of the future. Just one year later, COVID-19 entered our lives.

Each year Grace Cathedral chooses a theme for reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing.  As we enter the second year of the pandemic, we need more than healing. We need strength, endurance, steadfastness, the ability to hang on, and finally — hope. In this second conversation with Dean Young, Dr. Brilliant will put the pandemic in the perspective we need, discuss what’s really happening now and what we can expect next.

What is the role of philanthropy in our community, and has that role changed during the pandemic? Can philanthropy be an agent of social change in the community? Join us to hear from Nicole Taylor, president and CEO of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young about the work of SVCF and the future of philanthropy. 

Betty Louie is a first-generation Chinese-American retired businesswoman, community leader and philanthropist, and as the Year of the Ox begins she will be in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young to reflect upon the spiritual and secular traditions of the Chinese New Year, Chinatown revitalization in the context of pandemic and beyond and her family’s fascinating history in San Francisco.

Hilary Pennington is the Ford Foundation’s executive vice president for program and responsible for the BUILD program, which aims to strengthen social justice organizations, reducing inequality in all its forms.

She will be in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young about philanthropy in the 21st century.

Tom Steyer, businessman, climate activist and NextGen America founder will be in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young to reflect on politics in the 21st century in the first week following the inauguration of the 46th President.   

Each year Grace Cathedral chooses a theme for reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing.  Dean Young and Steyer will discuss the current state of our country as we head into a new year with the same problems of COVID-19 and new challenges of 2021, and Steyer’s hopes for healing in our divided country.