How do we speak truth in love—and stay grounded in care, courage, and connection while doing so?

In this powerful, heart-centered conversation, host Dwight Dunston is joined by two guests whose lives embody the practice of love as a healing force for justice: Inaara Neal-Shiraz and ,O. Together they explore what it means to balance bold truth-telling with tenderness, to hold anger and compassion in the same breath, and to become “alchemists” of our own emotions.

The episode begins with a passage from the Pendle Hill pamphlet Nonviolence on Trial by Robert W. Hillgas, which asks how we might name evil without losing sight of our shared humanity. From there, Dwight, Inaara, and ,O invite listeners into a living meditation on love—as practice, discipline, and transformation.

About Our Guests

,O is a longtime healer, educator, and community organizer working at the intersection of social and environmental justice. For more than 25 years, they have led workshops and healing circles that support individuals and groups in addressing the legacies of racism, sexism, homophobia, and class privilege. ,O serves as Healing Justice Coordinator at Philly Thrive, is a founding member of Alternatives to Gun Violence, and leads the Quaker ministry Love and Respect Transform, which explores the transformative power of love.

Inaara Neal-Shiraz (she/her) served as the Inclusion and Belonging Coordinator for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, supporting 10,000 Friends across four states and nurturing communities of belonging among young adult Friends. She brings her background in education, the arts, and nonprofit work to her ministry of connection—helping Quaker spaces become more inclusive and life-giving for people of all identities and experiences. 

Elder Wisdom

Throughout the episode, Inaara and ,O speak from different generations yet a shared spiritual lineage. They remind us that love is not sentimental—it is an ancient rhythm, an elder wisdom that lives in the heart. Love can be fierce, restorative, and revolutionary.

Dwight reflects:

“What if we weren’t afraid of love—to be seen, to be powerful, to let go of the king’s language and speak from the heart instead?”

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this special mini-episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, host Dwight Dunston reconnects with guest Lisa Graustein to explore how art, love, and power intertwine in daily life. Together, they reflect on the creative process as an act of resistance, connection, and renewal.

Dwight shares his newest creative project—an emerging genre he calls “Anthropocene Hip-Hop,” a musical form that bridges the natural world, social justice, and lyrical artistry. “I’ve been a hip-hop artist for years,” Dwight says, “but this moment calls for music that recognizes our interconnectedness—with each other, the stars, and the earth itself.”

You will hear one of his original songs. 

Lisa, a potter and educator, describes her recent community projects, including an art show inspired by Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and a new installation called Night Lights, which uses ceramics to create vessels that radiate light through perforated clay forms. “To me,” Lisa reflects, “there’s something metaphorically powerful about a bowl with holes in it. That’s what love feels like—a container that holds, but with space for things to move through.”

Through their conversation, Dwight and Lisa consider how love and power, like light and clay, must move freely to remain alive. Lisa says, “If we actually saw every human being as our sibling, every social problem we have would disappear.” Dwight responds, “That’s our human family—to see each other as resource, as places to cultivate belonging and hope.”

Together, they remind us that recommitting to love—through creativity, justice, and everyday care—is itself a radical act.

Guest Bio
A lifelong Quaker, Lisa Graustein is a former middle and high school teacher who now works as a facilitator and trainer in diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has led Young Friends programs, worshiped with the full spectrum of Quakers, co-facilitated Quaker Coalition for Uprooting Racism cohorts, and helped start Three Rivers Meeting. An artist and solo mom, she lives on Neponset Band of the Massachusett land, colonially known as Boston. Lisa’s pottery and art can be found on Instagram at @LisaGraustein.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

What happens when sacred stories are used to justify oppression—and when telling the truth feels like rebellion?

In this episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, host Dwight Dunston speaks with Sarah Ruden, an award-winning translator, essayist, and Quaker writer whose work exposes how language, power, and faith intersect. Known for her acclaimed translations of The Aeneid, The Gospels, The Confessions of Augustine, and Perpetua: The Woman, the Martyr, Ruden brings deep historical insight and moral clarity to this conversation about love, responsibility, and truth.

Drawing on the biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah unpacks how ancient hierarchies still shape the present. She traces the lineage of propaganda around women’s bodies from Ovid’s Rome to today’s reproductive politics—and challenges the spiritual evasions that allow injustice to endure. She also draws on her forthcoming book, Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women.

Key Quotes

“The silence of women in the Hebrew Bible is very interesting—very provocative to think about.”

“People, especially men, don’t want to take responsibility for what actually happens.”

 “We have to start by telling the truth.”

Together, Dwight and Sarah explore what it means to live with integrity in a time of crisis, how Quaker faith can both guide and confuse, and why empirical truth—science, evidence, and witness—matters for spiritual survival.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women – forthcoming from Knopf
• Perpetua: The Woman, the Martyr – Yale University Press
• The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible – Vintage
• The story of Hagar and Ishmael (Genesis 16–21)
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious” (1957) https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/when-peace-becomes-obnoxious
• Grace Lee Boggs and “The Clock of the World” – The Harvard Crimson

Learn more about Sarah’s work at https://sarahruden.com/

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

This mini episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope revisits our most downloaded conversation across six seasons, featuring visionary leader Niyonu Spann. Through excerpts from her full episode, Niyonu shares what it means to live with integrity—wholeness, surrender, and alignment with purpose. She reflects on the origins of her transformative workshop, Beyond Diversity 101, and offers listeners practical invitations to embody integrity in their daily lives.

About Niyonu Spann
Niyonu Spann is a facilitator, musician, and community leader with decades of experience in and beyond Quaker institutions. As Dean at Pendle Hill in the early 2000s, she created Beyond Diversity 101, a workshop that has transformed communities across the country. She is a prolific musician and founder of the performance group Tribe 1, which has carried songs of peace and justice throughout the U.S. and Nicaragua. Niyonu has also worked extensively with Chester Eastside Ministries in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Compelling Quotes from the Episode
“It is about wholeness. It is about remembering who we are.” —Niyonu Spann

“I didn’t even know I needed that song, but I knew I needed that song. Thank you for that gift.” —Dwight Dunston

Listen in for wisdom, music, and a reminder that integrity is the keynote frequency guiding us toward justice and belonging.

Follow Niyonu on Instagram @niyonus and LinkedIn. 

👉 To hear the complete original conversation, visit:
https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/2032871/episodes/12356301-integrity-radical-truth-remembering-who-we-are-with-niyonu-spann

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this first full episode of Season Six of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, host Dwight Dunston speaks with Lisa Graustein, a lifelong Quaker, educator, DEI facilitator, artist, and solo mom.

Lisa reflects on the intersections of love, power, justice, and belonging. She shares stories of winding life paths, creating safer spaces, and the importance of daily recommitment to what matters most. Drawing on an Alice Walker quote about love activism, she reminds us that even in disorienting times, joy, truth, forgiveness, and care for the earth can ground us.

Together, Dwight and Lisa explore the challenges of uprooting racism, the role of art and community in sustaining hope, and how faith can guide us toward more fluid, interconnected ways of being.

Quotes from the episode

• Dwight: “Sometimes love actually means saying the hard things or showing up in a space even when it’s not easy.”
• Lisa: “Our faith at its core actively assumes there shouldn’t be norms… Listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn’t mean we’re going to do the same thing all the time.”

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Season Six of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope begins with Francisco Burgos, Executive Director of Pendle Hill. Host Dwight Dunston and Francisco reflect on this season’s theme—love and power—inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Dr. King wrote:
 “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

In this wide-ranging conversation, they explore:

• What love requires of us in the face of injustice and despair.
• How power, when rooted in service, can become transformative.
• The resilience of community in times of crisis.
• The role of testimony and imagination in shaping a more just world.

Dwight and Francisco share personal updates, ground themselves in King’s words, and invite listeners to reflect on what social systems and testimonies we need today to build communities of dignity, justice, and hope.

📖 Featured Reading: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Episode Summary

Today, we share an episode from a sister podcast, Refugia hosted by Debra Rienstra. Refugia are places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis. From out of these small sanctuaries, life reemerges, and the world is renewed.

In this episode of Refugia, Debra speaks with theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst. She describes life in Casa Adobe, an intentional Christian community in Costa Rica, and discusses what faithful living can look like as we seek to resist complicity in the abuses of empire.

Season 4 of Refugia will be released this fall! Listen here or on your favorite podcast platform.

Guest Bio

Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a theologian, practitioner, teacher, and speaker with decades of experience in ministry throughout Latin America. She has served with organizations including The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Latin American Theological Fellowship, and World Vision International, among others. She is a theological educator, both in Latin America and in the United States with her position at Western Theological Seminary.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Episode Summary

Pendle Hill has just released its very first audiobook for our pamphlet series! Listen to the audiobook of Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371, Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates, here. In this episode, we first hear Tom share a little bit of the background to his pamphlet before listening to a sneak preview of the new audiobook.

Episode Resources

• Listen to the audiobook for Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371 Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates.
• Visit Tom Gates’ blog to read excerpts from his forthcoming book, Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective.
• Purchase a physical copy of Members One of Another from the Pendle Hill bookstore, or purchase an e-book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Guest Bio

Thomas Gates is a member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting, student of Quakerism, and now-retired family physician.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

 Episode Summary

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “The Exponential Impact of Historical and Ongoing Injustice: A Call To Action for Quakers,” that Dr. Harold Weaver delivered alongside Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge at Pendle Hill on February 3rd.

Hal’s message is a call for reckoning and retrospective justice around Quakers’ historical participation in slavery. He urges us to re-examine our past in order to take tangible steps towards a more just future.

Episode Resources

• Watch Dr. Hal Weaver and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge’s First Monday Lecture
• Read the Pendle Hill Pamphlet that Hal references, Hypocrisy, Racism, and Self-Interest on the Path to Reparations: Quaker Complicity with Slavery (1657–1776) and White Supremacy by Mary Watkins.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s anthology, Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights.
• Learn more about the BlackQuaker Project.

Guest Bio

Dr. Harold D. (Hal) Weaver, Jr. is the Founder and Director of the BlackQuaker Project (BQP), a ministry celebrating the lives and contributions of Quakers of Color worldwide and documenting and addressing their concerns. It is an outreach and in-reach ministry of his Wellesley Friends Meeting. Hal has spent his life confronting the cancer of white supremacy throughout the world, drawing upon the Quaker testimonies of Truth, Peace, Equality, Community, and Justice.

Hal is currently an Associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Hal lives in Newton

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “Towards a Just Democracy: Spiritual Grounding and Principled Action,” that Alicia McBride delivered alongside José Santos Moreno at Pendle Hill on November 4th, the eve of the presidential election. Alicia’s powerful message about how we can transform ourselves and our political system by acting with love continues to resonate as the new president now takes office.

Throughout the episode, Alicia offers several queries that call us to reflect on our participation in our country’s democracy. They are:

• What story are you telling yourself about this moment and about your role in it?
• What would a just democracy centered in love for all our neighbors look like?
• What part will you play in bringing it about?

Guest Bio

Alicia McBride (she/her) serves as the senior director for Quaker leadership at the Friends Committee On National Legislation (FCNL), where she focuses on connecting Quaker faith, practice, and community to policy advocacy in Washington, DC. Her various roles and more than 20 years of work at FCNL are united by a concern for how to act with integrity at the place where faith and the world meet. She is a member of Sandy Spring Friends Meeting (Baltimore Yearly Meeting), assistant clerk of the Earlham School of Religion Board of Advisors, a parent to two teenagers with her husband Sam Garman, and a yoga teacher.

Learn about FCNL’s work at https://www.fcnl.org/. 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.